Holography2: Wedding Present or Starling's Lament
by Pat Foley
Summary: What circumstances would cause a reknowned Vulcan diplomat to maintain an 18 year rift? In the Holo series, as in Trek, the only thing that trumps a Vulcan's logic is his biology. These are the Vulcans of Amok Time and JTB. Not explicit but mature themes.
1. Chapter 1

**Holography**

**Volume 2**

**The Wedding Present**

**Or**

**The Starling's Lament**

**By**

**Pat Foley**

**Chapter 1**

The sound of dawn birds woke Sarek. When he stirred, Amanda, still deeply asleep, snuggled closer in unconscious protest. He looked down at her head pillowed on his shoulder, felt her breath warm against his throat. One of his hands was tangled in her long hair that lay streaming across her back. Whereas she had one arm around his waist, one leg across and between his. Always at the back of his mind when he woke like this, was the nagging thought that Vulcans did not sleep thus, so uncontrolled

He had meant, early in his marriage, to say something to her about this apparently human lack of control in sleep. Perhaps to suggest some Vulcan disciplines. But they had both been reeling from the myriad culture shocks such a union engendered, and it had hardly been an important issue. And before he could even find an opportunity to raise it, he himself had become bowled over, lost, charmed by the absolute, unconscious show of trust and affection her sleeping behavior demonstrated. He had never experienced anything like it.

Not that he had approached his marriage unprepared. They had made a conscious, logical decision to bond, even based on – at least on her part – motivations that had been as much emotional as rational. As a Vulcan, he had expected his wife would honor and respect him. And yield to him – that was a given. Nor did he have any difficulty in understanding, sharing and reciprocating her desire. That was mutual between them. He had even made an intense study of the emotion called love before they bonded, and felt he understood it as well as any Vulcan could, even if he didn't expect to ever share it.

What he hadn't expected, what he had somehow overlooked in his research was this – this unconscious, unstudied expression of affection and trust – outside of desire or love - that she felt for him. Her careless, thoughtless, spontaneous innocence continued long past the point where they could claim any innocence between them - a behavior undeniably undisciplined and childlike, by Vulcan standards - even as she demonstrated in every other facet of her life that she was no child. It had struck him to his Vulcan core. And for the first time in his life, he had felt…envy. Most surprisingly, envy of humans. With the specter of Pon Far haunting him as it did every Vulcan male, Amanda's absolute trust and her conviction that he was worthy of that trust was something no Vulcan wife would so easily feel for a Vulcan husband. But apparently it was something common to Human marriage, and for that he felt himself wanting. He had done nothing yet to ensure her safety in Pon Far; he felt undeserving of such convictions. Yet Amanda felt that for him. He found that …amazing, given she had been well educated as to the nature of Vulcan biology. And captivating. He had become determined to earn that trust, even as he completely reversed his opinion on her sleeping habits. The idea of suggesting any alteration in that behavior was unthinkable. In fact, he would have opposed anyone or anything, Vulcan or human, that suggested it. Deserved or not, deserving or not, he found his desire for it ran a close second to his desire for her.

Though it did have its disadvantages. Small wonder he could hardly keep his hands off his wife when awake, when he was so conditioned to have her in his arms when asleep. But he would never trade a Vulcan marriage now for that as well. With that thought in mind, he shifted to draw her under him. It was when reaching for her hands saw the dark bruises on her arms.

For a moment, he stared at them, chilled, mentally berating himself for forgetting his own strength, inexcusable behavior, regardless of the cause – at least, outside the Time. But then the reasons for his loss of control came back to him, and he shuddered. As far removed from his former chill as if he were suddenly bathed in icy water.

Spock…gone.

He drew back from her as his thoughts congealed, and he tried to push the unpleasant topic away even as he withdrew from his wife's embrace. He had resolved firmly not to think of his son until the boy repudiated his errant choice and returned to his father's ways.

But still, the thoughts would come. Sarek found himself returning again and again to the events of the past week, of the past eighteen standard years of his child's life. Sarek could not see where he had gone wrong. His son's every choice had been Vulcan. Why would he abandon this choice now?

Spock's childhood had, to Sarek, been difficult and dangerous sands to navigate. And yet, from his son's Kahs-Wan to his bonding, to mastery of emotional control, of logic, of psi skills and basic educational requirements, to his final accomplishment of two advanced degrees at the Science Academy and an offer of research and teaching facilities, it had been a series of successes. No small tribute, Sarek believed, to his own patient guidance, his stringent application of discipline - necessary for the raising of a half Vulcan child as Vulcan in the same home as his human mother - and his own example. It would have been far too easy to relax his standards. But as the sole Vulcan in his Vulcan home, Sarek had borne the entire responsibility to raise his child within them, as well as to fight long and hard for his son's acceptance in Vulcan society.

Finally, with the Academy appointment and his son's passage into an honorable profession, Sarek had looked forward to the thought of welcome relief from his long-held care and struggle. If Spock had failed, that would have been one reason why the child might have abandoned his Vulcan life. But the boy had passed every test. Why, when the pinnacle had finally been reached, when victory was assured, when the long awaited mastery had been achieved would the child …abandon …all of it?

He sat up abruptly, his disquieting thoughts making it impossible for him to remain any longer in bed. Next to him Amanda sighed in her sleep and Sarek looked down at her, his expression dark, a mirror image of the tenderness with which he had regarded her only moments before. He was painfully reminded that she had supported Spock in this, and that she was another riddle he could not solve.

For Amanda was motivated by love. He did not, could not, **would** not love her.

He tried to understand her human emotions, and he believed he had a fair understanding of them, but they were not his. He knew she loved him. She said it, and he could feel it through their bond. But while he appreciated her emotions on an intellectual level, he found love… painfully wanting.

Before he'd married Amanda, he'd done research on this emotion considered to be so necessary to the union with a human female. That was only logical. And he had not liked what he'd found. Love as a motivation for marriage had been long empirically discovered, even by humans, to be lacking. It was fickle; it could not be trusted. But worst of all, it was not all encompassing.

As a Vulcan male, held for life, or for unimaginable death, in the grip of a potentially fatal mating drive, Sarek could not countenance anything less than a tie of marriage that was absolute.

But love was not. Neither was love, according to all his research, single-minded, or selfish. It implied a degree of self-sacrifice Sarek found incomprehensible. It had seemed, based on his reading, that if he really loved his wife, as he understood it, he would be able to hold her desires, her needs, above his. He would be able to have such reasonings stand above passion. That was…unVulcan. Reason had no place in passion, the two were antithetical. In a Vulcan marriage, a Vulcan male's passion must rule. Any other expectation could lead to death for both parties.

The thing that had horrified him most of all in his research, was discovering that if he really loved his wife, far from challenging for her, far from defending his right to her to the death, he would be expected to…just… let her go. When he had first read this philosophy, he had been sure it must be a mistake. Humans were so prone to them. But the theme was repeated again and again. Love implied the antithesis of possession.

Obviously, that was unworkable for a Vulcan male. Unthinkable. If that was love, then it must be impossible for him to feel.

Logically, based on his findings, he should have not pursued her. But his desire for her was the one area of a Vulcan male's life where passion should and must eclipse logic, and where reason had no place. He had instead sought to explain to her the biology of a Vulcan male and how it factored in his culture. He had had others, Vulcan healers more qualified than he to teach such subjects, explain it to her. He had told them to spare her nothing. She had been told of the blood fever, of the violent nature of a Vulcan male in his time…and out of it.

And of the permanence of the union. Dissolution was not an option. There would be no letting go here.

True, some few rare Vulcan marriages ended in divorce. Some were even dissolved without murder. But it was exceedingly rare, and mostly in parentally arranged marriages where the parties involved had never been through a _Time_ and agreed beforehand that they were unsuited, incompatible. Sans desire and passion.

That was not the case, had never been the case, with him in this. He had made sure, before they took the virtually irrevocable step of bonding, that she had understood, as well as a human female could, the depth of the commitment they were to make.

Her wife was not Vulcan. But she was intelligent. She was well able to extrapolate possibilities.

As was he.

That being so, the wise course of action would have been not to marry. Amanda had understood, as had he himself, that based on the wide difference in their cultures this was one area in which Humans and Vulcans never could, perhaps never should, meet.

But he had desired her, and she had loved him and they had both put reason aside. That was proper, logical, to do, as regards marriage. She had said yes. It had been a profound relief to him that she had enough appreciation of Vulcan culture and biology to understand where even logic must dictate passion's rule. He had not been sure, even then, he could have survived her refusal. And he had found it difficult to reason with his passion even enough to patiently see her instructed and informed before she made such a choice.

She had become his with her understanding that however much she might love him, this would be a Vulcan marriage. He was a Vulcan; she was his wife. He agreed to try, to try very hard, as far as he could, to understand and respect her human needs. But it was inherent in their agreement that she had no choice regarding his.

That was the one thing he could not, even remotely, countenance. Even only months from a recent pon far, his mind could not accept the possibility. As a Vulcan male in the prime of life, his … passions… ran high on this. He was Vulcan and she was his wife, his bondmate. She had no right, none, to even consider any desires other than his own.

Not even her son's.

Not even her own.

She was his.

Sarek forced his racing heart to slow, his sudden short breaths to calm.

Well, he had kept his side of their unlikely bargain. He had promised to consider her needs, and when she had demanded her son's freedom in payment for her own, he had granted it. But it was a high and dear price. No doubt, in Amanda's human mind and emotions, she considered she had paid in kind. He understood she was invoking some human ideal of self sacrifice, in her remaining, and that he almost could not bear. It implied she was making a choice and in his mind, even the idea that she had such a choice invoked a kind of madness in him. A barely suppressed wish to challenge against this unnamed foe.

She had no _choice_.

He refused to acknowledge the sense of purely Vulcan pain and betrayal he felt that a bondmate he had honored so many years and through so many _Times_ still harbored such thoughts.

But, he reminded himself, she was only human. Even as his Vulcan passion rose in fury at such a tacit betrayal, his reason held him barely in check. She was human, not Vulcan. She could not help a culture which had no biological or racial conception of an absolute biological need unto death. She could not comprehend or offer, unknowing, what she did not understand. No more than he could understand love. It was for him to make his demands plain in such a way that even a human female could understand them.

Well he had, years ago, agreed to meet her as well as he could, halfway. And he had let his son leave for Starfleet. And he would see she kept her side of the bargain as well. Which did not imply any half measures. He had lost all of his son, and he would keep all of his wife. Past all letting go.

Fortunately for them both, Amanda was intelligent and honorable enough that when he succeeded in making her understand his requirements, she had never failed to yield to them. Though he admitted to frustration, even occasional fury, that instruction was still sometimes required.

He rose jerkily, unable to stay still any longer, his thoughts too painful to contemplate. His movements jostled Amanda, and she turned over and sat up. Her eyes met his, and something of his thoughts must have showed on his face, must have communicated through the bond, even not touching. The color of her blood rose in her face, washed pink across her bare limbs, and she swallowed hard, her gaze breaking from his, her breath catching in her throat as she stilled under his gaze. H

Tis wife had spirit. But, as he reminded himself yet again, she was only human, and female. The enormity of what she had agreed to quailed even her at times. Sarek did not regret seeing that.

It proved she understood her position. Human and flawed as her humanity made her in this regard, she had yet made an agreement. And was honorable enough, after her own fashion, to understand that and keep it. He would see that she did. Even if her love had moments when, as he had long ago expected, even predicted, it might falter. Well, his passion and logic had no such failures, and he would see she did not fail him.

The heavy curtain of her unbound hair had fallen forward, hiding her face from his, but he knew her body as well as his own, and he could see her stillness in her bare unmoving ribs, hear the absence of her respiration as she held her breath. He drew the blond strands behind her round human ears, back from her face, tipped her chin up with strong fingers so her eyes met his. His gaze raked her again from head to feet, possessive, demanding. But then he stepped back.

"You have a class to teach, do you not? You had better get dressed."

_To be continued…_

_copyright Pat Foley 2005_


	2. Chapter 2

**Holography 2**

**By**

**Pat Foley**

**Chapter 2**

Amanda sat up slowly, drawing a deep breath, looking after her husband as he left the room, his broad shoulders uncompromisingly square. She put her hand to her cheek, thinking of his barely leashed strength as he'd taken her face in his hand.

She sighed settling that same chin in her own hands, thinking about what that meant.

So last night had not quenched his anger. Well she couldn't suppose the perceived loss of an only son would fade so easily. But Sarek's anger was going to make her position uncomfortable until it did, particularly as he was no longer shunning her. She sighed again as she thought of dealing with her husband's formidable temper directly. There were times, like now, when caught unawares by it, she froze like a rabbit in a snare, abruptly reminded anew of why Vulcans strove so hard to control their emotions, and how dangerous they could be when that control slipped. Maybe it would have been easier to stay shunned.

Well, he usually worked through his anger quickly. His swift leave-taking implied some of that. He'd run through his Vulcan disciplines and get over it soon.

She hoped.

But he was right. She had classes to teach. Time to deal with Sarek's misplaced sense of pride and anger later.

But later came and went, and the right time to reach Sarek didn't seemed to come. Day after day they rose, worked, came home, shared a meal – though neither one of them were eating much – and neither one of them were saying much. She couldn't seem to find a way or a time to broach the topic. Sarek kept a distance between them – and no one could put up a wall like a Vulcan - that she struggled to figure out how to broach without arousing his temper. A temper still so barely leashed, and a veneer of self control so thin and hard won, that she didn't dare force a confrontation. And more, that wall, that distance, implied he was not ready. She had expected he would need some time to reconcile himself. But as Spock's absence stretched into days, when it became obvious that he was not going to return home, and Sarek faced the reality of his loss in full, his anger seemed to grow, not lessen. She grew confused about what to do.

When she pushed too hard, Sarek would demand her attendance and take her to bed. When she didn't push too hard he would often do the same. Even there, he kept the same distance between them, in spite of his persistent attentions. He didn't sleep until he was tired, which meant **she **didn't sleep until she was exhausted. And he never softened his cold, demanding stance. She had never seen Sarek like this. Behind that wall of rigid control a terrible fury was barely leashed. She was coming to realize Sarek wasn't just going to get over his anger, that all the emotions he had repressed and walled up in his confrontation with his son were now falling onto her.

She wasn't used to being the object of his displeasure. Far rather the opposite, his regard for her had long been one of the cornerstones of her life, and it was unsettling to find it absent. Dealing with her husband in this state made her realize some of what Spock had endured through his childhood. But she wasn't a child, but Sarek's wife. And only human. While Sarek wasn't…technically…hurting her, she was finding his attentions harder and harder to bear. Even Pon Far was more personal than this. She was starting to feel like a kidnap victim – or some kind of victim. She couldn't say no, and he would not let her say, or even feel yes. He was deliberately punishing her, both of them. And she was beginning to wonder if it would last as long as Spock's absence.

One day was marked by another message from Spock. It was exactly one Vulcan week since the last one, he was apparently taking her literally. She wondered if he would switch to human weeks once he got settled, but rather hoped he didn't, Vulcan weeks were shorter and she'd hear from him more often. She hit the play button, grateful Sarek wasn't home, and sat back.

"Greetings, mother." He looked different already to her discerning eyes. He was wearing a Starfleet cadet uniform, and his hair was a little shorter than she remembered, but other than that he looked physically the same, though seemingly puzzled and searching for words. "I am … I supposed you would say settling in. Classes have commenced. The students are mostly Terran, but there are some humans from other colonies and a few non-humans. My course of study is meant to be Sciences, but as I have passed out of many of the science courses for prior mastery, I am being prevailed upon to also take Command. Apparently on starships, the sciences lead one to Command at the higher ranks. As I wish to serve on a starship, such a combination is considered a logical course of study for me. I have…" he hesitated. "Agreed to try it. I realize this decision may be considered even less acceptable to those in my family than what I had previously planned, since Command will also lead to decisions and actions contrary to Vulcan philosophy." His eyes lifted briefly, to meet hers directly as if he could actually see her, as if this were not a previously taped message transmitted by subspace. "But," he shrugged, "some of those concerns are perhaps not as relevant, given my acknowledged family is smaller now. As my only parent, I would be interested in your opinion."

Amanda snorted. "If you could see how your father is storming around the house like a lematya with a sore paw since you left, you'd see the lie in that, regardless of what words your father has spoken."

Spock paused and then went on, "I am in several peer groups. There is a certain amount of illogical aggression from the students in the upperclasses. It is not directly to me primarily as a Vulcan but appears a general wave of such against all new students. This has yet to be a problem for me, as most of this occurs after lights out, and as I have excellent hearing, sleep little, compared to humans, and that lightly, I am never caught unawares. And Vulcans are much stronger than humans, so what aggression I have encountered I have been able to answer without excessive force. However, I would be interested in knowing if you have an opinion on how to handle this situation. I am unsure of the correct cultural response."

He paused again. "Other than that, I find my classes satisfactory. The material is rather basic, but the mix of students and teachers from many worlds makes it more interesting. I am learning to deal with Terra's ambient temperatures – though it is very cold here. San Francisco is grey and damp. Even when it doesn't rain, and mother," she could hear the astonishment in his voice, poor child of a desert world, even as controlled as he could be, "it rains **very** frequently - but even when it does not, the air is frequently laden with a mist of water, called fog. An interesting phenomenon. But chilly. However, when the sun shines, the bay is quite stunning. One tends to overlook, given Terra's name, how much of your world is covered by ocean." He was quiet for a moment. "I suppose I must begin to start considering it my world as well. Though that is still difficult. He then added, "I trust you are well, Mother, and the same with such family as I can properly ask after." He looked up. "I am also well, and I bid you goodbye."

Amanda froze the message, examining her son again with the keen eyes of a mother. No, she didn't see any marks on him, and he looked well. Spock perhaps understood bullying and aggression better than most human children; he'd suffered from it on Vulcan, from Vulcans. There his hands had been largely tied lest any retaliatory behavior mark him as human. But those restrictions didn't apply and wouldn't work on Terra. She doubted her son had any real comprehension with how to deal with Terran bullies, or understanding of military style hazing. Not that she knew much of that herself, but she knew a darn sight more than her Vulcan son. She hit the reply button. After the preliminaries, she got down to business.

"One rule of dealing with bullies – don't back down. They are not interested in the search for peace, they are interested in the search for you - for someone to dominate. If you stand up to them, they'll move on and find someone else. That doesn't mean you have to go after them. But if they are going to come after you, and it sounds like that is happening, then you need to set up a scenario where this confrontation happens sooner rather than later … and on your terms. Figure out who the ring leader is. Then engineer the situation so that you get caught in a place where you can control the outcome. You know how to defend yourself," she added, for Spock had been taught defensive tactics for his Kahs Wan, and anything that would work against a lematya would work against a human. "And make sure you get caught alone, that this confrontation is private. Bullies don't like to be publicly humiliated. Just… put them on the ground. Once they see you can stand up for yourself, they'll move on. It's a form of …weeding out, Spock."

"Another thing, if you treat them the next day as if nothing happened, you'll probably end up with them being friends. I know it's illogical Spock, but often true. Think of chakas – if you put a new one into the herd, the others will chase him. If he always runs, they'll always chase him. And make his life miserable. If he stands his ground and kicks out, they'll soon leave him alone. I'm afraid some Humans haven't matured above animals in this regard. Believe me, it won't be a constant thing. You won't have to go after others in turn, pursue anyone aggressively yourself, as they are doing. Just engineer a defense where you come out well ahead, and they'll stop. Humans are emotional at times, but they are not stupid. I have a feeling anyone who can stand up to T'Pau and Sarek won't have any trouble, if you can bring yourself to get a little physical." She hesitated, thinking of Vulcan strength. Even Sarek forgot his own strength, and being only a growing kid, her son had much less control. "Remember, a **little** physical, my son. No broken bones." But then she added maliciously, "but if you care to, you can give them an extra bruise from me."

She raised her head, hearing Sarek come into the front hall, and paused the message. Best to finish it later. Her husband's temper wouldn't countenance hearing her dictating a message to Spock at this time.

_To be continued_

_Copyright Pat Foley 2005_


	3. Chapter 3

**Holography 2**

**By**

**Pat Foley**

**Chapter 3**

Later that evening, Sarek would have concurred with his wife's estimation, had he known it. He was standing at his favorite sentry port, looking at the section of sky where the dim star Sol was, if it could be seen from Eridani. But he was not at present thinking of his son. He was thinking of his wife.

His behavior to her was bordering on the inexcusable. And bordering only in the sense that 5000 Vulcan years ago, it might be considered partially acceptable. But this was not Pre-Reform Vulcan, and further, his wife was human. Behavior a Vulcan woman would excuse or ignore would not receive the same license from Amanda. Already he could see it in her eyes, sense it in her manner. He was damaging their relationship – and to a closely bonded Vulcan male in the prime of life, who could expect regular frequent returns of Pon Far, that was the height of madness.

This was not her fault.

If it was anyone's, it was his own. He had held sole responsibility for his son's training for the past ten years. And he had, so he thought, been a close and painstaking guardian of his child. Every school, every instructor, every course of study, had been personally selected by him – and he had demanded regular private reports on his son's progress, and made it clear to both instructor and student that this was no ordinary tuition. That he was setting the highest standards of Vulcan excellence, and would not tolerate anything less. Every activity, every interest – or so he had thought – required pre-approval by him, and if not approved, such was stringently forbidden. He had chosen suitable companions and disallowed unsuitable ones. He had limited his son's access – so far as he was able to in an information free society – to such materials and subjects as he felt were appropriate to the boy's development. He had set up the child for success, on a straight and narrow Vulcan path, as no child surely could ever claim before – even to limiting the boy's relationship with his mother. Spock may have held half his mother's genes, but to Sarek, Spock had been his creation. Pure Vulcan in spite of his genetic heritage. His son. And the boy had …nearly…done it. Even now Sarek was receiving interested queries regarding Spock's last research dissertation that led to his mren-to in astrophysics. In a few weeks, his son would have been a researcher and instructor at the Vulcan Science Academy, a proven and sealed clan heir, his future life bonded to a Vulcan female. Done. Sarek had been looking forward, pleasurably, to the surcease from care that would have brought, and, eventually, the prospect of making his child's acquaintance as he had not been able to while he held him under such strict standards.

Even when Spock had left, Sarek had not truly believed it. The knowledge that his son had gone off planet was not yet circulated, nor had Sarek circulated it, not until he could be sure the child would not swiftly return. He had honestly expected the boy to rethink his decision. When he left anyway, Sarek had expected him back on a return ship.

He had even done something ignoble to help ensure that. As clan heir, Spock's training had been painstaking and arduous, and as such compensation in property was part of his hereditary right. It had been granted him upon first being sealed as heir, and regularly since. Thus the boy had extensive funds at his disposal, though he had never used any without Sarek's permission. But the funds were his, not his father's. And, when Sarek had known his son was leaving, he had blocked the boy's access to that property with one communication. His action was highly irregular, and would not stand up to a legal challenge, but Sarek had not expected Spock would be gone long enough that it would become an issue. And yet it had been two weeks, and still Spock had not come home. Nor had he touched or tried to use the funds Sarek had denied him.

He had discovered Spock had traveled to Starfleet on a standard deadhead policy that allowed Starfleet recruits basic transportation to the Academy and other required destinations. And once he had enrolled, joined, Starfleet, Starfleet standard issue would cover his essential needs. He essentially had no urgent need and no immediate or pressing use for the funds Sarek had blocked. It had been a petty and useless gesture. But Sarek did not regret it. He'd had few weapons at his disposal to influence Spock, and he had used what was available. And it had to be daunting to the boy, who had not been off planet in years and never without the strict guardianship of his parents, to be alone in an alien society and completely without resources. How could he not use such an advantage to dissuade his errant child?

But it had not worked. And his son, whom he had had painstakingly raised and trained and nurtured and guarded was out there, with nothing but a few clothes to his name, and Starfleet—Starfleet! had assumed his guardianship, would feed and clothe him, educate his child and train him in unimaginable philosophies, choose for him companions such as Sarek would never had allowed, and instructors Sarek would not have seen set foot inside any educational institution. After eighteen years of setting the most rigid Vulcan standards for his son, now humans would set him requirements. Humans, Starfleet Officers, would dictate his actions, define his goals, evaluate his abilities.

For Sarek, this was unimaginable.

He knew his son had gone to Starfleet willingly, but it was difficult not to feel that Starfleet had stolen his child. His child. The habits and thoughts of eighteen years were not easy to eradicate. He'd had sole control of his son for too long to be able to easily comprehend that any other had a right to his association, much less his training.

He wanted Spock home.

Even now he did not understand how Spock had made it as far as he had in such an alien society. And alien it had to be, in spite of Amanda. Sarek had worked hard to keep his wife's influence on their child necessarily small. Other than family conversation, and even that Sarek had done his best to monitor, the only influence his wife had had in the last ten years had been to teach the boy piano. And that had been, Sarek admitted, mostly because he enjoyed hearing her play and her Academy teaching duties had made those instances when she had chosen to do so vanishingly small. But Spock was musically gifted, and he knew the lyre well, and Sarek had seen no logical reason why he should not learn another instrument, even if a Terran one. And surely that small indulgence on Sarek's part had played no part in Spock's decision to embrace Starfleet.

He had kept the boy from his mother, had denied the mother much access to his child. Partly due to the necessary concentration on his son's Vulcan training. But also, out of concern for his future. Spock had to be bonded to a Vulcan female, even as Sarek had rejected that choice for himself. There was no sense torturing the boy with what he could never have. Amanda loved him so much, as mother to child, that Sarek wondered how Spock would ever find contentment in a marriage that would offer him none of that. It could not be helped.

But even as he denied Spock access to virtually everything regarding Terrans, fearing the effect of such contamination in Spock's Vulcan training, his rigid control of so much of his son's life meant that his son was less mature, in some respects, less experienced with choices, and diversity, than a Vulcan child of his age. The boy had no experience with such on Vulcan, and his off planet experience was as nothing. He had had no exposure to guile, to enmity, to violence. He knew only his mother, nothing of the true range of Terran character. He might well be as trusting of all Terrans as he was of her. Sarek had never thought to teach him anything else. And now his innocent child was off on his own, as ignorant and defenseless as Sarek had made him, in a Terran dominated Federation, on Terra itself, with all its license, self interest and evil, far outweighing any individual good. Anything could happen.

Before his first Federation assignment, Sarek had been fully mature, well trained to evaluate and understand Terra's dubious varieties of cultures and values, at least in so far as a Vulcan could. He'd gone with advisors, counselors, an entire embassy staff, which had done its best to create a small Vulcan haven on Earth. And even with a full Embassy team, Sarek had found the experience …extremely difficult. In fact, he had disliked it. He did not regret the time he had spent there; it had availed him of his wife. He had never chosen to return as Ambassador to Terra, even though it would take Amanda back to Earth, seen lesser, others assigned in that place. He had taken the more difficult, more dangerous assignments as Federation ambassador when duty required. But he had never returned to Terra to the relative ease of a regular undemanding stint there. Amanda had never asked him to return either. Perhaps she knew.

And Spock was out there, alone. Subject to the demands, disciplines and training of humans Starfleet officers who now had him in thrall and who knew nothing of Vulcans.

If someone had asked him to imagine the worst scenario he could, he would never have been able to conceive a horror such as Spock had chosen for himself.

And even as he shuddered for what Spock would endure, he still judged him.

How could he not now consider his son … incompetent… to have made such a flawed choice. It was a bitter thought, but it had to be acknowledged. As well as hopelessly immature and naïve. It was a fact that skill in sciences did not necessarily imply wisdom in other areas. His son might have achieved advanced degrees in computer science and astrophysics, but he was obviously backwards as regard life choices. Some of this, Sarek admitted, was due to his own educational restrictions. He had never allowed Spock to make them. But even when Sarek subtracted the blame that was his own, the remainder that was his son's responsibility was beyond all reason.

Part of him simply wanted to welcome his child home, set some reasonable discipline (though Sarek could not imagine what that could be and was still struggling to conceive of one) and say no more of it. But there was still the undeniable fact that Spock had made this nightmarish decision based on what could only be considered seriously flawed logic. When he got the boy back, what could he do but rigorously remap his training, reassess his true abilities. Re-educate him in true logical thinking. Teach him never to stray so again.

But that was when, and it had to be said, if, the boy returned. Sarek admitted to himself his stringent attempts to prevent Spock from leaving were an equal deterrent in bringing the child home again.

And Spock had already been gone far longer than Sarek had anticipated.

What if the boy did not return? It was inconceivable, but …what if? His carefully trained heir would be redefined by the Starfleet Sarek abhorred.

Never. No child he had so raised and trained would stay in Starfleet. Sarek believed that firmly. And while he had initially opposed Amanda's lenient attitude toward Spock's choice, now he could see she had a purpose to her actions. When Spock encountered the true nature of Starfleet, and recoiled from it as he must, Amanda would provide the encouragement and mediation for him to return to his family and his people.

_To Be Continued…_

_Copyright Pat Foley 2005_


	4. Chapter 4

**Holography 2**

**By**

**Pat Foley**

**Chapter 4**

Amanda closed the door of their private suite behind her, and deliberately relaxed. Sarek was off meditating in his usual spot, and she hoped he'd finally find some sort of peace with Spock's choice. In the meantime, she would finish her message to Spock, and with luck, she'd have time to review tomorrow's teaching before Sarek returned.

She crossed to the sitting room she used as a study. The suite was large, a residence in itself, meant to be so in the days when many had lived in this ancient fortress. Beside the outer reception rooms and their bedroom, there was her sitting room and a private den for Sarek, though he never worked in it, keeping a more public office on the ground floor, where he received others. She kept her office up here, because the Vulcan staff who maintained the building and grounds never entered their private suite. And she didn't want Vulcan eyes raised askance at her things. She wasn't messy by human standards, and Sarek never complained, though he sometimes picked up after her reflexively. More than once she had told him to leave her things alone, startling both of them, for she rarely raised her voice to him, and he did it largely unconsciously. Vulcans were nothing but neat, neat, neat in their habits. But he had seemed amused by her little flares of temper, as if she were nothing more than a kitten baring its claws before a lematya, and considering the huge difference between human emotions and what she had come to recognize of Vulcan passions, the analogy probably was a good one. At least he had never seemed displeased or taken aback by her temper. He only expected and demanded her obedience in one area, one dictated by Vulcan biology, and reinforced by Vulcan tradition. And that she had been well warned of before their marriage. The rest of the time, he was so indulgent with her she had to discipline herself not to end up absolutely spoiled.

At times like these, when he was in a temper, she reminded herself of that. He'd defied his mother, the matriarch of his clan to marry her, had allowed her to bring anything she'd wanted to Vulcan with her, including priceless starship cargo space for her huge library of books, had, on his own, expedited the import, long requested by the Terran delegations on Vulcan but now of personal interest to Sarek , of dozens of varieties of fruits, vegetables and grains that would be familiar to her – and had set up a Terran garden and greenhouse on the grounds of their home, terraforming the desert to do it and covering it to ensure a climate where such would thrive. She had dozens of her own fruit trees now, oranges and lemons, limes and bananas, plums and peaches and even apples though it had been hard to find a variety that would grow well without a good cold snap. Sarek found many Terran fruits too sweet, actually after years on Vulcan, she found many of them too sweet too. But he was actually rather fond of apples. Vulcan gardeners now grew snow and sugar snap peas and lettuce for their table, and a host of other vegetables, and what she and Sarek didn't eat, and they didn't eat a fraction of it, was sold to Terran markets on Vulcan for what was probably a huge profit. And he'd added flowers too. She had breathtaking gardens, which she hardly had leisure to enjoy, including an acre of roses. Roses actually grew rather well here. Her own enchanted bower. On Vulcan.

After rumors of the gardens had spread, and he grew weary of refusing the constant requests for special visits, Sarek had finally relented on part of his carefully guarded privacy and allowed the staff to take well shepherded tour groups through it, one hour, twice a week, when he was sure not to be home. She always wondered, with a trace of amusement, if the guides realized they were showing off not just flowers and fruit, but an expression of devotion to their wide-eyed visitors, many of them Terran tourists: Here are Amanda's gardens. See a living expression of Vulcan devotion. Pick a rose. Have a raspberry, a new hybrid we're having particular luck with. And while you're nibbling on that, girls, eat your heart out.

And don't you wish you could be a fly on the wall of their bedroom.

She always avoided the gardens where the tourists were there. It was too embarrassing.

He'd done more than that, too. He'd fought to have her academic degrees and teaching credentials recognized on Vulcan. There had already been an active petition from Terrans to trade research and teachers from the Vulcan Science Academy with Federation universities, but it had been stalled from lack of interest on the Vulcan side. Sarek had pushed through such academic exchanges, and quickly, so that by the time his assignment on Terra was over, not only was she able to teach at the VSA, she was neither the first nor the only human there. He'd made sure she had a place on Vulcan for that part of her life. And that too, he'd done without her prompting.

She had never to ask for anything, indeed, she had to be careful to admire little, to regard everything with Vulcan restraint, because anything she didn't appear indifferent to was liable to end up in her possession. She sometimes thought Sarek would have brought down the Terran moon to Vulcan, if he'd thought it would please her. And he claimed he didn't love her. Well, perhaps it was just as well. If this was how he treated an unloved wife, heaven help her the day he decided that he did.

Well, given his current state of displeasure with her, there wasn't much chance of that now, she thought.

She sat down at her desk, reminding herself she had to continue her message to Spock. No wonder she had trusted Sarek so absolutely in the raising of their son, when he had been such an indulgent husband to her. He gave her anything she might possibly want, all he asked of her was to meet his needs, needs that were an intrinsic fact of his biology. Why wouldn't she have trusted him with Spock? How had it happened that Spock and his father had ended up so estranged?

She sighed and replayed Spock's message and the reply she'd recorded up till now. She sat back in her chair, drawing her knees up to her chin, sad and wishing things were otherwise. Her husband was furious at her son, furious at her, and her son was off on Earth, being harassed by stupid thugs, when he could be home on Vulcan, a researcher and teacher himself, an honored and sealed clan heir. "What I really want, honey, is you home right now," she told the frozen image of her beloved son. But she'd left the recording button off and he'd never hear that.

_It isn't what you want, it's what he wants that matters. Would you keep him tied to your apron strings forever?_

_I don't even own an apron, she told herself crossly._

Oh give it up, Amanda. Tell him you love him and miss him, and that his father does too, though he will never admit it. And then say goodbye. And whatever you do, you silly fool, don't lose it. He has enough to deal with.

She recorded the message, put it in the queue to be sent by subspace squirt, and began to review her lectures for the next day. She had gotten through most of them when she heard the click of the door to their outer suite. After a moment, Sarek appeared at her door.

She sat back from her work smiling a tentative welcome and Sarek crossed to her. "You are working very late, my wife."

"I'm pretty much done."

"Indeed."

"Did you meditations go well?"

"Perhaps."

Amanda hoped that were true, and Sarek was being reconciled. At that moment, the subspace queue activated and her message to Spock began to encode, feeding through the system, with a muted squeal.

And Sarek suddenly tipped his head. His eyes widened and his gaze locked on hers.

She blanched under the dawning realization that he could hear and decode subspace squirts.

"You are aware of my opposition to Starfleet and instead of facilitating his return you are counseling him on how to succeed within it? To use violence to do so? In opposition to all my teachings and that of the Vulcan heritage he has chosen?"

"Don't take something you might have thought you heard out of context-"

"I heard **everything**, my wife."

"Eavesdropping on private messages is hardly ethical behavior, my husband."

Sarek drew himself up, well and truly caught by that. His own culture revered privacy and he had, even if inadvertently, just broached that precept inexcusably. For a moment he stared at her, betrayal in his black eyes.

She lowered her head before that accusatory gaze. "Sarek, I'm just trying-"

"No." He gestured sharply. "I do not want to hear of it, Amanda."

"**You** can listen to my message and judge me, but you won't let **me** talk to you about it?"

"You have already dispensed your flawed advise without seeking my counsel before doing so. There is thus no point discussing it now."

She drew a breath at the injustice of this. "Don't blame me for that. What other choice do you leave me? You're the one who told me I couldn't speak to you of Spock!"

"And I don't want to speak of him now."

"It isn't too late for you to counsel him **yourself**. Please, Sarek.." She held out her hands to him, but he drew back a pace, obdurate, intractable. She drew her own arms back, hugging herself in frustration. "I don't understand. Why can't you stop this ridiculous silence of yours and just **talk** to him." She stared at him, furious. "How can you refuse to do that? You're the adult in this equation. He's the child. He misses you. He loves you, though he'll never say it, because you won't let him. But I know he does, that he'd do anything to please you, if you would just try to meet him half way. How can you let him go, abandon him like this?"

"That is enough."

"No, it's not. I refuse to let it be enough. How **can** it be possible that someone revered for his negotiating skills throughout the Federation has such a reputation for intractability at home?"

"_**Kroykah!"**_

She froze at the sound of his raised voice, shocked as he took a furious step toward her before halting by main force of will. For a moment, there was no sound in the small room but their ragged breathing. Then, to her disbelief, Sarek extended a hand to her.

_Oh, no! Please don't, please don't, please…_

"My wife, attend."

There was no response possible to this but acquiescence.

Her silent litany froze in her mind and faded as Sarek crossed to her, offering her the two fingered touch of bondmates. She joined her fingers to his, numb and disbelieving, and followed him.

Why is he ending every argument like this? Why **are **we even arguing like this?

It took her real effort to take her hair down. She ran her fingers through the unbound strands, putting off disrobing a few seconds more. Across the room, Sarek was shedding his clothes, then pulled the covering off the bed, and tossed it on the floor with a complete disregard for the priceless antique that it was. She couldn't seem to move, and was amazed after all these times and all these _Times_, that she was finding this so difficult. _You have no choice, you have no choice_, ran through her mind, like a litany. She had learned her Pon Far lessons, or thought she had. What was **wrong** with her?

The difference was, she thought, that she wasn't unwilling then. Even though at those times Sarek was in the grip of the Fever, even when he sometimes forgot his own strength, and took her past her own, she wasn't, at heart, unwilling.

_At heart._

"Amanda."

Sarek came up behind her. She met his eyes in the mirror. She realized she still hadn't undone her dress. She told herself, told her fingers to do it, but they still didn't move.

Frowning, Sarek reached over and taking a handful of material in each hand, simply shredded it in half.

She closed her eyes as the protesting shriek of the material seemed to echo her own internal one. This wasn't Sarek's way. He understood foreplay; he understood and shared in, the pleasurable tension of undoing garments slowly.

Why is he doing this to me? To us?

She stood silently as he tossed the remnants of the garment to the floor. Another litany was beginning in her head, a litany dimly remembered from the worst of pon fars, a tiny thread in her mind

Just bear it, bear it, bear

She tensed but didn't resist when he picked her up, carried her to the bed, laid her on the sheets she had changed that morning.

_I've made my bed and I must lie in it_, she remembered herself telling T'Pau, and heard the old woman's echoed, _yes_.

_Humans are infinitely adaptable_, she reminded herself as Sarek covered her, _the most adaptable species in the universe. We can get used to anything_. But she drew breath in dismay as Sarek took her wrists in his hand. And resistance. She wanted that much at least. She didn't care about the rest of it, if he just would leave her at least the illusion of choice. But she swallowed the protest as his grip tightened.

That was the worst of all of it, somehow. Even worse than his callous use of her body. He did not caress her, he would not let her touch him. It somehow made it so much worse.

For the first time in her husband's arms, the first time in eighteen years, he could not evoke a response from her.

It took him a while to realize that.

When they'd first married, he'd taken painstaking inventory of her body as they made love, her responses, her likes and dislikes. What made her sigh, what made her shiver, what made her clutch him closer. He studied them, and her, and then he studied her again. And again. And then he started combining them and reinventing them in ways that made her almost shy about appearing in public with him, sure the responses he could invoke in her must somehow show. In the months after their marriage she'd been amazed and a little confused by her supposedly logical husband's intense interest, fascination, near compulsion to explore her sexually. Thinking he was laboring under the typical misunderstanding that humans were the sexual rabbits of the known species in the universe, she tried to reassure him on that regard. He'd merely looked at her, an impatient frown between his brows, unimpressed and uncomprehending.

"I would not hurt you, my wife."

"You're not."

Sarek simply shrugged, and renewed his research efforts. It had taken a few Pon Fars before she really understood what he was after. He'd needed to know all the methods and ways to evoke a response in her regardless of her physical or emotional condition. That covered a lot of ground. And Sarek was nothing if not thorough. He'd learned, and she'd learned, to return that response regardless of whether she was hungry or thirsty, tired or aching, frightened or in pain, furious or resistant. It was the only way to guarantee she'd survive those _Times_. And he'd learned how to do it too. At times she felt he owned her body more than she did, commanding that response in spite of, or even against her will. He could play her like a lyre. Sarek, of course, regarded this as logically necessary, and grew as casual about this ability, even smug if that could be said of a Vulcan, as if the skill were little different.

She, on the other hand, preferred **not** to think about it. Odd that she accepted with relative equanimity so many other of the strangenesses of her Vulcan marriage: a mental bonding, a fatal mating compulsion, a marriage worked out in strange juxtaposition to the twin gods of logic and passion. But it was Sarek's casual control of her responses past her own will, that if she had to think about it, gave her the most pause, more even than an alien mental bond or a culture that considered her an equal in some respects and little more than property in others.

She loved her husband, and she was in love with him. She welcomed showing that to him, but she had never much cared for having that response taken from her, however easily he could command it. But that was something best left unspoken, unthought and unfelt. Sarek wouldn't be able to handle it. And because it was logically necessary that he could do it, she suppressed her emotions about his casual assumption of those skills.

But now those skills were failing him. Failing them both. He tried every thing in his repertoire of tricks. He unbent his indomitable disapproval to use all the touches, all the caresses, one handed, that he could. But he kept her wrists always firmly pinned in one hand and he would not let her touch him.

That had never been a problem before. Vulcans in pon far were interested in sex, not lovemaking, and Sarek typically pinned her then, and she'd never had trouble responding. But now she could not. He looked at her, betrayal plain in his furious eyes, and then, for the first time, he …left her behind.

Amazing how cold one could feel, even on Vulcan, even with her husband's fever hot skin against her own. Cold and empty.

_To Be Continued…_

_Copyright Pat Foley 2005_


	5. Chapter 5

**Holography 2**

**By**

**Pat Foley**

**Chapter 5**

She was thinking about that the next day in her office at the Academy, worrying about it, trying to puzzle her responses through, his responses through, even though thinking about sex gave her a headache. And she probably spent more time thinking about it than most of her married human friends, blissfully married to human men, who didn't bring 5000 years of Vulcan hang-ups to bed with them as her husband did. Too bad Sarek couldn't just leave all that behind, instead of her.

She understood that Sarek was angry with his son. She didn't understand why his anger was causing this particular response. It didn't make sense to her, but as it kept happening, it had to be based in some sort of reason. Though Sarek was so angry, beyond all reason, perhaps none of this made any sense. At times like these, she felt lost, at sea, in an incomprehensible culture. And with Sarek at the heart of her confusion, she had no one to ask.

She adored her husband when he wasn't in a temper; he sometimes reminded her of the best of Jane Austen's heroes combined. Behind all that strict Vulcan propriety he kept for the world, was a passion he kept only for her. No matter what he said, she knew he loved her. And as for her. Well. He was handsome, charming when he wanted to be, devoted to her, ardent past all human standards. She still could shiver at the sound of his voice, tremble at his touch. All that and he loved and desired her with a passion undimmed even by twenty years of marriage. And rarely let a day or a night go by without showing it. And, he made her laugh too. No one could be so mischievous in the rare times he unbent, though perhaps he just seemed more so in contrast to his usual staid control. They could and did have great fun when he let his precious Vulcan traditions go for an hour. She missed that in him now.

She didn't even mind Pon Far – how could she? Her husband was ill, desperate and she was just as desperate to do whatever she could for him. She was his only help then. It was a responsibility she took very seriously.

Even when he was in a temper, even **now**, god help her, he had a Heathcliff-like quality that she still found irresistible. For in spite of all this prating about Vulcan controls, no one could fly into a temper, scowl – even sulk - like Sarek.. And his possessive desire for her, even though it was a natural effect of a Vulcan bonding, was right out of a Bronte novel. She loved him for that too, fool that she was.

_You, Amanda Grayson, have a permanent case of arrested development. Falling in love with eighteenth and nineteenth century romance characters is not sensible behavior for a 23__rd__ century woman. Remember, Cathy didn't fare too well at Heathcliff's hands, and __**he **__was human._

Though Heathcliff's obsession was eerily Vulcan. She sometimes wondered where the 19th century Emily Bronte had met her husband.

Though she had no fears of ending up like Cathy. Sarek usually got over his temper quickly, and he had a saving sense of humor. But that was absent now. And something was definitely different about his anger this time. Sarek was undeniably stubborn, at times he could be unreasonable, often in a flattering conviction that she could do anything a Vulcan woman could. He could be possessive and demanding and inflexible at times. But his behavior lately went beyond all that and this flare of temper wasn't subsiding. And her behavior last night certainly had added fuel to it.

It was not Pon Far or the opposite of Pon Far – the times when they just made love - that was the problem. It was all the times in between that she sometimes struggled with. Her failure – she could only call it that – last night was bound to have repercussions. Sarek had still been furious this morning, and she was dreading what she would encounter this evening. He was in a punitive mood and she was going to catch the worst of it. Knowing Sarek, he would probably reinstitute all his Pon Far lessons from day one, with a vengeance.

She rubbed her aching temples and wondered if Vulcan women had similar problems, and decided based on what Sarek told her, probably not. No, once they learned their Pon Far lessons, they were set for life. It was she who was in a class by herself. The slow class. And her husband could be a demanding, and at times inflexible teacher.

On the other hand, what did human men know of human women? There was no real reason why Vulcan men shouldn't be as ignorant.

But it was hardly something she could ask Vulcan women, if she even had any friends with whom such confidences could be exchanged. Though she sometimes watched Vulcan couples, she never saw males with quite the same demanding possessiveness Sarek showed to her. She had always assumed that her behavior, her lack of Vulcan control and ingrained submission, of equivalent psi skills, made him display in behavior what would otherwise be expressed, or would not need to be expressed, in the bond.

And as for human women, not only did they not have her problems but most of them apparently thought she lived in some kind of chaste sterile world where her husband never touched her but once in seven years. And she never dissuaded them otherwise. She was not into schoolgirl confidences. Let them find their own Vulcans if they wanted to know how blasted that myth was.

At times like these, such a myth had its moments.

The fact though, was that she had to get her act together, and fast.

_Everyone is entitled to one bad night. You were tired and he was in a temper and_

_None of that is going to placate him._

_**Can**__ you do anything to placate him?_

The fact was, she admitted to herself, she was just not very good at those lessons.

_Oh, face it, Amanda, you are lousy at them._

The Vulcan ideal for female sex was apparently a woman who was responsive but passive – a difficult combination to pull off, at least for her. Except for cases where a male might be resisting Pon Far, needing his mate to do some gentle coercion, Vulcan women were apparently **not** supposed to be assertive in bed. In Pon Far, a too assertive mate could escalate the male's aggression, with fatal results. Current Vulcan thought was that the woman apparently should not joggle the male's control at all, neither by rejection, of course, but also nor by too avid a response. Never having had the problem of needing any coercion, Sarek didn't care for it when she herself was too assertive. To a Vulcan male it apparently reminded them of unpleasant possibilities and difficult _Times_. Sarek, Vulcan to the core, much preferred her responding to him. Early in their marriage he had come to realize that human women were …different…from Vulcans in this regard. And to give him credit, he accepted that, and gave her opportunities to participate, rather than merely respond, in lovemaking, though at times she felt rather like an indulged child than a woman by his treatment. When he was in an indulgent mood, he gave her some free rein early in their encounters, but only to a point, one which never lasted for long. When his passions reached a certain height, when he trusted neither them nor her not to joggle his control, he pinned her down and that was that. He did it, not to be cruel, but in the opposite motivation, to ensure that he didn't lose control and hurt her. But sometimes even knowing the reason, she found it hard to bear. Only sometimes. Of course, after years of marriage, _sometimes_ added up.

The first couple of years, when they were still learning so much about each other, it hadn't really been an issue, or yet a habit of her husbands, at least not enough to seriously bother her. He needed to know what made her respond, he needed to know where and how she differed from her Vulcan sisters and what he had to do to accommodate that and he'd actually welcomed that she was undisciplined enough - by Vulcan standards - to make that very clear to him. But after Sarek had gotten all her responses down, and they'd been through a couple of Pon Fars without major incident, he'd apparently decided he had learned enough and they had tempted fate long enough, and he had settled down to seriously teaching the fine points of her role as a Vulcan woman would play it. Largely by nagging her to relax, relax, relax, even as he was doing all the things that definitely did not make any red blooded human woman lay passively. She honestly had tried. And failed. She was no Vulcan, and Sarek wasn't the only one with biological imperatives. And in spite of what he told her, she found it hard to believe he actually wanted this from her.

But he seemed to. And with the inestimable patience Vulcans could summon when they chose, Sarek simply persisted, night after night after frustrating (for her) night, praising her as long as she held the state he wanted, shaking his head in disapproval when she broke – and taking it up again the next time, the next lesson. He simply seemed to regard her behavior as one more example of flawed human control, one where practice would avail. Finally, one night she actually managed it – staying relaxed and passive even as Sarek made love to her with such consummate skill she felt as if she was burning unconsumed. But she held it through all the touches and caresses and the first gentle and then passionate taking of her body until he finally climaxed and she could at last follow with her own surging convulsive response, taking her unawares she had resisted it so long, so strong it was as much pain as pleasure, as if she were being turned inside out.

Sarek had looked down at her and said, "That was excellent, Amanda, you finally did it."

And she had looked up at him, still trembling like a tuning fork from the echoes of that climax and turning away from him, had burst into tears.

And what a fiasco **that** had been. She was in no state for an explanation, but Sarek wasn't about to let her get away without one, so once again, he pinned her down, which only upset her more. While he tried to figure out why his human wife had gone into emotional meltdown on him, something he might have understood if he had chastised her for failing but not when he had just praised her for finally succeeding, she tried to first deny and then explain why she was upset in words he could understand. And failing utterly, she broke down and told him the truth – how much she hated, absolutely hated, what he'd been doing to her, and why she just couldn't, wouldn't, refused, to do it any more.

Ah, that forbidden _no_. She had been warned.

Sarek had listened, wide eyed and astonished as she poured out her heart to him, clearly unable to be more surprised at what she was telling him. But when she got to the _no _part, a _no_ she had never said before in these circumstances, he bridled under the one-two punch she was giving him, and in return gave the knee-jerk reaction **his **biology and culture dictated. "My wife, that is not an option. You must."

She looked up at him, shocked in turn, he so rarely denied her anything. "I don't. We don't need to. Why can't we just go on as we did before?"

"That is not possible. This is something you must and will master."

"I can't."

"On the contrary, you **have** proven you can. Even if it is difficult now, you will improve with further practice."

She had stared at him, realizing he didn't understand how she felt at all. She turned away, crying herself to sleep, while Sarek watched, stunned and uncomprehending at this turn of events, at how his good intentions had gone so wrong.

And night after night, as if determined to prove to her she really **could**, he continued his lessons. He wasn't being cruel, by his lights. His absolute faith in her would have been touching, in other circumstances. But instead of relaxing, she now tensed, not deliberately, not intentionally but as if her body was resisting what her will was not allowed. At first he was patient. Then more than patient, he began treating her like a slow witted child, which certainly didn't endear him to her. But then, when she still didn't relax, he grew frustrated. And when she began tensing before he took her to bed, showing clear reluctance, he grew positively wary, but kept on because he didn't seem to know what else to do. Nor did she, since she couldn't say no and she couldn't manage yes.

It had been her physician, Mark Abrams, who'd gotten her out of that one. He'd come up beside her at an embassy party, touching her shoulder lightly to get her abstracted attention. She been so tense she'd nearly jumped out of her skin in startlement, and then was so shaken and upset Mark took her to a quiet corner to get her composure back. When she'd stopped crying all over his shoulder, she'd told him to find Sarek to take her home. He did, but he waylaid him first.

"What the hell are you doing to that girl, Sarek?"

"What makes you think I am doing anything?"

"Because of the two of you, I always felt Amanda had more sense," Mark said bluntly. "And when I see her like this, it makes me think the problem didn't originate with her." He looked at Sarek's wary countenance and said, "All right, you're not talking. So I gather there must be some Vulcan custom involved. Am I right?"

For a moment, Sarek hesitated, then he said. "Your deductions are not entirely false."

"Well how about giving her a break?"

"A break?"

"Cutting her a little slack." Realizing Sarek wasn't interpreting the colloquialisms, he said, "Oh for – just try to remember that she's human, not Vulcan."

"I am aware of that. But I am Vulcan."

"And I don't see her imposing a lot of human standards on **your** behavior. Look whatever this is about, and it doesn't take too much imagination to guess, just consider this. She can't stop being human any more than you can stop being Vulcan. So if you're insisting on some Vulcan discipline, consider that for every time you impose some Vulcan standard of behavior on her, you ought to give her at least equal time to be herself. That is, if you want her to **stay **herself."

Sarek stared at him.

"What?"

"That is …logical, Doctor."

"Just take her home. And for tonight, forget logic. Or at least, don't make her life a living hell. Let her be herself for a change."

Amanda had looked up when Sarek came to her. "I'm sorry."

"There is no need to apologize, my wife. I am also fatigued and would go home."

"Are you feeling all right?"

"I will be." Sarek said.

At home, Sarek considered his wife while she took down her hair, and brushed it out. Seeing his gaze fixed on her, she looked at him nervously, and then as if steeling herself, she went to bed. Sarek undressed as well and joined her. He watched the muscles move in her throat as she swallowed, a telltale sign she was nervous. He reached over and took her hand in his. She looked down at that, bemused, for he was usually more direct.

"What would you like to do, my wife?"

"What do you mean?"

"Would you care to sleep, or something less…restful? I understand if you are fatigued."

For a moment, she didn't answer, not quite believing he would relent on something he'd become so insistent on.

"Amanda?"

"I know I have a husband," she said quietly daring, seeming to address his hand over hers, "but sometimes I don't really feel that I do."

"I don't understand."

"How would you like it, Sarek, if I told you I would sleep with you only in Pon Far, and never sleep or make love or even touch you otherwise?"

Sarek stiffened and looked down at her. "What do you mean?"

"How would you like it?"

"You do not need to ask that. You know I would not. Amanda, you can't-"

"But that's all your biology requires, isn't it? Isn't the rest just …emotional?"

His whole body had tensed, he was holding himself together by main force. "That is not - What are you saying, Amanda?"

"Look at your hand."

He looked down, and unclenched his fingers from where he'd tightened them around hers.

"That's how I've been feeling, since you started your latest 'lessons'," she said ruefully. When he stared at her in astonishment, she added, "I have emotions too, my husband. I wish you'd give me half as much credit for mine as I try to do for yours."

"Amanda-" He drew a breath and unclenched the fingers that had involuntarily tightened again, part of him utterly relieved that her statements had been merely to make a point of argument, and part still reeling in horror.

"I know, I know." She sighed. "I have to do it." She looked away and he watched while she swallowed hard again. "Believe me, I have been trying."

"Perhaps," Sarek hesitated, considering, vulnerable himself from her devastating method of making a point in argument, and then sacrificed tradition to compromise once again in his marriage. "Perhaps you do not have to…all the time."

She looked at him.

"As you say, you have proved some mastery of the ability. There is… no great need …to reinforce it daily. I supposed it could be relegated to …perhaps… once a week."

She flung her arms around his neck and hugged him, taking him completely by surprise.

"Amanda!"

"Thank you." She drew back, smiling.

He looked down at her, and half smiled in turn. "You are very illogical, my wife."

"I know. And I love you anyway, my husband."

Sacrificing tradition again, he took her hands in his, very gently this time, drawing them back around his neck where she had flung them, and leaned down for a kiss, murmuring, "Then perhaps you might continue showing me how much…my wife."

In the present, Amanda sighed. In the past she and Sarek had worked out many of their differences through compromises on both sides. Surely they could do so again. It wasn't that Sarek was uncaring, or obtuse. Sometimes, she just had to figure out how to reach him, past the huge culture gap that sometimes separated them. If she could just figure out how. She was thinking on that so deeply, she didn't notice her friend until she touched her shoulder.

"Mandy?"

"What?"

"Are you all right?"

"Of course."

"I've been knocking for five minutes while you sat there in a daze."

Amanda shrugged. "Just…a lot on my mind."

"It seems a lot has been on your mind for a while." Renair crossed into the office. "You've been teaching by rote. You've posted yourself out for all your office hours even though you are still sitting in here all day. And even though you're here, you're **not** here. You don't work, you don't talk." She sank down across from her friend, worry plain on her face. "It's like you're in shock. What's going on?"

Amanda pushed back a loose strand of hair. "Nothing."

"Nothing." Renair repeated. "Mandy," She eyed the hand shaped bruises on her friends wrists, some new, some fading. "Are you sure there's nothing you want to tell me? I mean, I've been on Vulcan long enough to-"

To know some essential facts about Vulcan biology, she meant. And she knew Sarek had been through Pon Far a couple of months back, because nothing less would excuse a teacher taking a leave of absence for two weeks in the middle of a term, as Amanda recently had, an absence Vulcan authorities always granted without question. So it wasn't Pon Far. But what was it?

Not that her friend's husband didn't occasionally forget his own strength, even outside of that syndrome. She'd had prior evidence of that. But there was something definitely unusual about seeing the sort of marks Amanda had been sporting day after day. And her friend's shell-shocked manner was definitely not typical. "You're not …pregnant, are you?"

Amanda colored to the roots of her hair. "No, of course not."

"Well," Renair hesitated. "I know he can get possessive -"

"Reny, I love you dearly and you are a friend," Amanda said firmly, "but my private life is **private**."

"Oh, Mandy! Do you honestly think his feelings are some sort of secret? Even if he so much as walks into the office to pick you up after work, he practically challenges anyone who even speaks to you."

Amanda flushed. "You have lived on Vulcan long enough to know Vulcans can at times be-"

"Amanda, I've known you for years. How can you not see it? He is like that **all the time**."

"You're attributing human emotions to Vulcan behavior."

"I would no more dream of calling those human emotions than I'd compare a child's firecracker to antimatter. He's not just serious about you, Mandy, he is **scary**."

"You're exaggerating. That's just Vulcan reserve. It can make him seem intimidating. Really, he's not."

"Right. And last summer, at the Enclave Fair, when he thought you didn't see that aircar coming, and of course you did, is it an exaggeration to point out that when he yanked you back, he snapped your wrist like a twig?"

"Even Vulcans can startle momentarily. He forgot his own strength."

"He doesn't strike me as forgetting much."

"It was an accident."

"Yeah, that's what I mean. He gets momentarily startled; you end up in Emergency, getting a bone laser fused. That's why I don't like what I'm seeing."

"Well, I won't go walking into traffic today." Amanda turned back to her terminal, and then said, "Oh, damn! And I don't need this today of all days!"

"What?"

"My mother-in-law wants to see me," Amanda said darkly, feeling pressured enough from all sources to finally vent some of her feelings. "According to this, she wanted to see me an hour ago, and I didn't-. You think these Vulcans could learn to give at least a little notice!"

"Mandy, has something happened? I mean, I didn't think you were, well, on speaking terms with-."

"I guess I've just gotten lucky," Amanda said tensely, biting off each word as if to get control over her tongue. She bent to gather her things.

"Amanda, please. I'm worried. Can't you tell me what's going on?"

"No. Reny, please don't ask."

Her friend drew back in frustration. "I honestly don't know what you see in him. I mean, yes, I can see what you **see** in him - he's a fox. But how you can live with him, I **don't **know."

"I'm no walk in the park myself."

"Uh, Amanda?" Renee glanced uneasily at the door. "You've got… visitors."

Amanda turned to see four Vulcans in full ceremonial garb of palace livery, complete with ceremonial weapons, flanking the doorway. She drew a deep breath, and said. "You may tell her I will come at once."

Two guards left without comment, two remained, apparently ordered to escort her, folding their arms across their burly chests, ceremonial weapons as well as fully functioning phasers on their hips. T'Pau had been subject to more than a few interstellar hostilities as Vulcan grew to prominence in the Federation and her ceremonial guard grew less ceremonial and more functional as time went on. Amanda picked up her possessions, not pleased that her mother-in-law chose to underscore her point with such a heavy hand. Well no one could be as subtle as T'Pau when she chose, and no one could be as blunt. Apparently, with her human daughter-in-law, T'Pau chose the latter.

"What, do they think if they just leave one, we're going to overpower him?" her friend muttered under her voice, though probably not under Vulcan hearing. "I'll hit him high, you'll hit him low? **Very** low."

"Don't make me laugh," Amanda said, smiling in spite of herself.

"I'm going to call you," Reny called after her, watching worriedly as Amanda was escorted out by the guards.

_To Be Continued…_

_Copyright Pat Foley 2005_


	6. Chapter 6

**Holography 2**

**By**

**Pat Foley**

**Chapter 6**

Amanda paused on approaching the entourage surrounding T'Pau, one of whom blocked her path, outrage in her black eyes. Amanda realized apparently T'Pau hadn't bothered to inform her usual attendants that her long shunned daughter-in-law was no longer an outcast. Still rankling at being sent for in such a presumptuous manner – surely four guards was excessive – her mood wasn't improved by the evidence that she was unwelcome here, by T'Pau's entourage if not by T'Pau herself.

The matriarch glanced up, eyes meeting hers, and she brushed at the air. "Leave us," she told the group.

T'Pau's chief attendant, T'Lean, who was blocking Amanda's way turned to T'Pau in shock. "Matriarch?"

"She will wait on me."

Her usual attendants froze at this, glancing among themselves.

"Matriarch, should I not stay?" T'Lean said. "This-"

T'Pau did not give her a chance to get the pejorative out. "Who better to wait on a mother than her daughter?"

If Amanda had been in a better frame of mind, she would have laughed at the astonished and horrified expression on the chief attendant's face.

One by one, clearly reluctant, the Vulcans walked past Amanda, their accusing stares taking every notice of her humanity, her lack of formal dress, her casually arranged hair, and every detail and flaw in her person.

"Daughter, attend." T'Pau held out a hand.

Amanda sighed in frustration, beginning to hate the sound of that command.

"There is a problem?"

"No, Mother." Amanda moved before T'Pau and offering her hands, dropped to her knees. T'Pau held her hands longer than was polite. She felt her mother-in-law's light touch, mind to mind and shielded against it. She sensed T'Pau's surprise at the rejection, but the matriarch merely raised an eyebrow without seeming offended. Instead, she turned over the human hands in her own, eyeing the renewed marks on her wrists.

Amanda pulled her hands back, smoldering at this breach of Vulcan manners. If she had done such a thing, every Vulcan around her would have blamed her humanity. It was one thing to get pushed around by Sarek, but having T'Pau take notice of something so personal, and in violation of all Vulcan etiquette, at this stressful time of her life and after 20 years of being diligently shunned, was more than she would tolerate. Submitting to Sarek was one thing, rolling over for her mother-in-law was quite another.

Or perhaps today, she was just not in a rolling over mood.

"Sit."

Amanda did, staring evenly into space, her resentment plain. "How may I serve you, T'Pau?"

"Thee will start by addressing me properly, **daughter**," T'Pau said pointedly. "And in future, when I send for you, I expect thee to attend me willingly, on time, and with all due diligence. I realize humans lack time sense, but I understand there are such things as clocks."

Amanda jerked her chin up, glowering. It was true, no matter how she resisted it, that as Sarek's wife she was as surely under T'Pau's authority as anyone in her husband's clan. And that authority was virtually all encompassing. She would get nowhere trying to oppose T'Pau, not even Sarek could do that. She forced herself to some semblance of calm, thinking perhaps she had misappreciated being shunned all these years. "I beg forgiveness, Mother. Again, how may I serve?"

"I understand thee correspond with Spock."

Amanda hesitated. There was only one person who could have told the matriarch that. She damned Sarek for setting her up, but admitted, "Yes."

The old woman nodded once. "Thee will tell me of what he speaks."

Amanda stared at T'Pau, shocked. Vulcan was a large planet, but the circle in which T'Pau, Sarek, Spock moved was a small community, socially, politically, intellectually. Sarek had not found it difficult to keep tabs on his son, an information network that she'd known had sometimes frustrated the boy, for seldom had he done anything of which Sarek was not immediately informed. She knew from her last conversation with the matriarch that T'Pau had once had her own sources as well. She must be frustrated, cut off as she presently was.

But not nearly as frustrated as Amanda was feeling. "I have put up with a lot here, particularly lately, but what my son tells me is between my son and myself. I am not going to spy or inform on him for you."

T'Pau's eyes flashed. "Spy? Inform?"

"I thought Vulcans respected privacy."

"I do not ask you for anything **private** between yourself and your child. You may tell him I **ask **of what he speaks," T'Pau said. "Leave him to decide what I am to hear."

Amanda drew herself up. "Why don't you correspond with him yourself then?"

The old woman raised her eyebrows. "Thee consider assisting with a mother's correspondence beneath a daughter's duty?"

Amanda let out an exasperated breath and her shoulders dropped. T'Pau as Matriarch was surrounded by courtiers and assistants. Seldom did she deign to do anything herself. Perhaps she'd had misinterpreted T'Pau's statement. Or perhaps T'Pau had been testing her. The old woman was complicated and Amanda did not know her well enough to judge.

T'Pau flicked an eyebrow. "Are thee satisfied?"

Amanda shrugged one shoulder, suddenly tired of fighting the current of Vulcan requirements that enveloped her life. "I beg forgiveness for my hasty words."

"Thee appear troubled, daughter."

Amanda drew herself up. "I'm fine."

T'Pau picked up one of her hands and drew it over, palm up, to show again the dark marks around the paler skin of her wrist. "This is fine?"

Amanda pulled her hand back, flushing, embarrassed and hurt that T'Pau would humiliate her so. She'd been on Vulcan long enough to know that no Vulcan ever spoke of such things, or even chose to notice them. "That is between my husband and myself."

"Such aggression is appropriate only in the _Time_," T'Pau said disapprovingly. "Not otherwise."

"Perhaps I am a disobedient wife," Amanda countered, deciding that if that was what T'Pau wanted, she'd plumb that shame to the depths. Let T'Pau think **that** of her, that she refused her husband's attentions. Then the old woman would really have cause to despise her.

"And perhaps my son is yet angry." T'Pau persisted, clear black eyes unimpressed by her dissembling.

"Perhaps I give him reason," Amanda threw back, throwing caution to the wind.

"And what reasons could these be?" The matriarch questioned, her brows raised in skepticism.

Amanda lowered her head, a half dozen breaths from losing her composure in tears. "I do not give permission for **this** invasion of my privacy, Mother."

T'Pau hesitated, studying her so long that Amanda regained her hold on her traitorous emotions, but grew uneasy in another way. She felt T'Pau had plumbed her to the depths, even not touching, and all her shielding to the contrary. But perhaps that was just her impression. Finally the matriarch sighed. "Then speak to me of your child, T'Amanda," the old woman said, settling back against her high backed chair.

Amanda sat back in turn. "I have only heard from him twice. He has arrived safely on Terra. Entered Starfleet Academy. He managed to prevent Starfleet from issuing a press conference on their first acceptance of a Vulcan, avoiding the political difficulties that would have caused his father. He's started taking classes. He has been requested to take Command as well as Science courses, and he has been concerned at his father's – and I suppose your – reaction to that."

"Why should he not command?" T'Pau asked indifferently. "He is bred to it. Is he well?"

Amanda hesitated. T'Pau clearly wasn't merely asking if he were physically well. "I think he is a little homesick. Terra is very strange to him, naturally. But he seems to find the experience interesting, and he is otherwise well."

"Thee are helping him. To adjust."

Amanda considered her mother-in-law measuringly. "I hope so. What little I can, from so far away."

The matriarch nodded, satisfied. "Thee will tell me if there is anything that can be required of me."

Amanda gave T'Pau a startled look.

"Thee find this unusual?"

"Sarek is waiting for Spock to fail."

"I do not choose to have Spock fail in Starfleet."

"Why?" Her eyes narrowed. "Do you just want to ensure he stays gone?"

For a moment T'Pau drew a sharp breath, black eyes flashing. But then in the next moment, she exhaled, and tilted her head, looking at Amanda almost calmly. "Thee does not know me, T'Amanda."

"That is not my fault."

"No. Thee have had injustices done to thee, in marrying my son. Some may be said to be at my hand. It is understandable that thee does not know where thy allies lie. Be aware that I am one of them."

"I would prefer that you were my son's." Amanda said, unmoved. After twenty years on Vulcan, she didn't consider she had any pressing need for T'Pau as an ally for herself. When she might have, her mother-in-law had been anything but. It was hard to overlook that entirely. Spock was another matter however.

"Thee may take that as given."

"Thank you."

"Thee will tell Spock."

"Yes."

T'Pau nodded. "Tell him that I ask of him. Tell him I would hear of him. If he has needs, these I will meet."

Amanda drew up a little at all this. It was a little unsettling, given Sarek's position. But she could only welcome such support for her far ranging child. "Thank you."

"It is my duty. With Sarek's position so unaltered, he is **my **child now."

Amanda considered the possessiveness of that _my_, and wondered if Vulcans were aware of how much they revealed of their emotions even in the few words that they said. Or if her son, considering himself renounced, virtually exiled in Starfleet, knew what a power play was going on at home over him. T'Pau's statement implied she and Sarek had had further words. She could imagine how that had tested her husband's temper. T'Pau's possessive _my_ had rankled **her** a little bit.

T'Pau sighed, taking her silence as an indication Amanda wished the interview over. "Thee has nothing else for me?" Her eyes roved over Amanda. "Thee appear drawn, child. I would know if I can assist thee as well." She raised an eyebrow and added, as if in explanation for the uncharacteristic interference in what was normally private. "My son seems to take little care of his family, and thus these duties fall to me."

"There is nothing." Amanda met the matriarch's eyes, her gaze unwavering.

T'Pau frowned at her. "If thee will not speak to me, I can yet speak to my son."

It was a tacit threat of sorts, a bigger shame than T'Pau's notice of her bruises, but Amanda refused to be cowed into confidences. "I can hardly prevent you from such an action. But it is my understanding that what passes between a husband and a wife stays within the marriage bond."

"That is the usual course." T'Pau admitted. She eyed her anew and shrugged. "Very well, daughter. Thee may go until thy next attendance. Perhaps thee will _mark thy calendar_," T'Pau said the Terran phrase with a certain relish, "since thee seems to have trouble remembering this is to be a regular duty. I should not have to repeatedly command you. And next time, daughter, remember to dress as such. I am guilty of much indulgence to my children, but I insist on certain conventions. Since my son seems to fail to supply thee with suitable garments, thee may expect to see such sent to thee."

"Yes, mother." Amanda knelt for the formal leave-taking.

She went home, shaking her head at the thought of yet another duty. And not at all sanguine about the idea of being under T'Pau's close scrutiny on a regular basis. She was grateful to T'Pau for any support for her son, but at present all she really wanted right now was to eschew even the thought of duties and go to bed early. To sleep, she qualified, though her mind shied away at the thought of what she expected her demanding husband would actually require before she really could sleep. She decided to try and fit in a quick nap before Sarek came home. Unfortunately, she discovered Sarek was already home, closeted in his study. Well, she could only hope that whatever was occupying him would keep him busy to the usual end of his working day. She could still fit in a nap.

First things first, she fulfilled the obligation T'Pau had laid on her, and sent Spock a message, informing her son that his grandmother had asked after him, wanted to hear from him, and stood ready to assist him as needed. "And won't that just make his day," Amanda murmured, thinking of her son's raised eyebrows at the news. Such an unqualified statement from T'Pau was a virtual blank check on the future, and while she doubted her son would ask for anything, it had to ease at least some of the pain from his estrangement with Sarek to know his grandmother was thinking of him. She felt a pang as she realized how fiercely she missed her child. Spock's lack of close associates his own age had forged a strong bond between them, in spite of the strict behavioral standards his father had imposed on him. On them. They had never had to say much to understand each other, and seldom did. They had communicated so much through looks, through silence so rich it seemed filled with meaning, through the occasional rare touch, mostly on her part, but sometimes on his, a quasi accidental touch of her hand, usually. It was very odd, that the only way they could communicate now was through words. No wonder they were clumsy with them, with expressing themselves to each other through them.

Her love and sense of loss for her son rose up in her, and it took her a few moments to work through the rush of emotion. Before she could move on.

There were a bunch of professional messages which could wait till tomorrow, and a message from Renair, too, asking her what had gone on with T'Pau and if she was all right. Amanda grimaced, hesitated only a moment, before leaving it unanswered. She never got too close to her human friends since her marriage, certainly not close enough for confidences.

It frustrated them, for to humans, friendship implied such trust. But during the brief media circus that had accompanied her marriage to Sarek she had learned caution. The press, or at least the less reputable of them, had done what they could to dig up anything on her. They'd camped out on her doorstep, taken pictures of her everywhere, followed her like a pack of hounds. Sarek as the Vulcan ambassador to Terra had escaped most of this, living under heavy security, and virtually unreachable as far as personal information went. But for her, they didn't stop at harassing her. They had dug up friends, childhood acquaintances, old roommates, they even tried for old boyfriends. In fact, they'd been particularly interested in that, and when determined searches had turned up no good pictures of her romantically involved with an old flame, and thank god what few childhood romances she'd had had been with boys too noble to talk, one scandal rag had dredged up a picture of her at fourteen – a playbill actually - as Juliet in a school production, in a clinch with the erstwhile Romeo. Try that for embarrassment. Fortunately Sarek had been amused, even wondering at all the fuss.

She'd learned there were people who'd say anything for money or a few minutes in the spotlight. More than a few barely remembered acquaintances or so-called friends from her childhood had been induced to step in front of a camera for their ten minutes of fame and be interviewed about her. She'd learned how embarrassing even the most innocuous incidents from one's childhood could be, when broadcast to millions. She'd learned then not to give anyone anything that could be used against her in future. Even when she wasn't front page news any more, Sarek often was. There was enough Human/Vulcan animosity on some issues that she didn't need some casually recorded remark or confidence of hers used to spread controversy at a critical moment. She did not cut herself off from humans entirely, but she was now doubly cautious. She kept what human friends she had at a distance, said little of a personal nature to those that she had, and that she said personally, not in written or recorded messages that could be dredged up later. Whatever she decided to tell Reny, she would do it in private and in person.

So with one message sent and one unanswered, she rushed through dinner preparations, the thought of a nap beforehand still strong in her mind. Unfortunately, rushing and weariness didn't mix too well. She was chopping some freshly gathered vegetables when her hand slipped on the knife.

"Ow!" Amanda grimaced. "Damn." She stared at the red blood spilling over the counter, wondering why these sort of cuts always bled so much, and fumbling for something with which to staunch it. She grabbed for a disposable cleaning wipe, and yelped in real pain, as the cleaning agent came in contact with her broken skin, stinging enough to bring tears to her eyes. "Oh, that hurts!" She put the cut to her mouth instead, and stood for a moment, waiting for the pain to fade.

"What have you done?" Sarek asked in his beautiful voice, coming up behind her, apparently attracted by her inadvertent – and very unbeautiful - yelp, in spite of all the doors and corridors between them.

"It's nothing." Amanda turned swiftly, damning Vulcan hearing, trying obscurely to hide her hands and the rest of the incriminating evidence behind her back, concealing the gash by covering it, not too successfully, with her other hand.

Sarek was having none of that, turning her aside and prying the concealing fingers away. She'd forgotten the wipe, and clutching it in her gashed hand made her wince again. He pulled it away, drawing a sharp breath at the sight of her blood welling up from the slice. Even as long as they had known, intellectually, the color of the other's blood, it was always a fresh shock to each of them to see it spilled in all its ribald color, whether red or green. He pinned her with a dark look. "Wait here." Then came back with the first aid kit. Amanda surrendered her hand, knowing better than to argue, and looked down at her husband's bent head as he cleaned the cut with an appropriate agent, then laser fused and sealed the slash. Even scowling and furious, he was handsome. She almost didn't regret trading a gashed finger and her hoped for nap for this evidence of his concern, exaggerated though it was. Even when finishing, he used that beautiful voice to soundly criticize her. "There are times when I believe you need a full time keeper, my wife. How can you be so careless with your safety?"

"Anyone can have an accident."

Sarek's dark visage obviously didn't agree. He straightened, still holding her hand, and looked disapprovingly over the preparations on the counter. "Why were you using a knife, instead of the food processors?"

"I was in a hurry."

Sarek raised an eyebrow at the illogic of avoiding mechanical contrivances when one most needed them. "And what task requires you to hurry?"

"I thought-" Amanda drew a breath, looking up at her husband, and shook her head. "No reason."

Sarek shook his head at this apparent evidence that his wife was as doubly illogical as well as dangerous. Then looking down into her eyes, he took a step closer. She backed up a little, but the counter was behind her, and she had nowhere to move as Sarek brought his mouth down on hers. Even though he was frowning still, the kiss was surprisingly gentle. She drew in a breath as the kiss deepened and lengthened, and feeling dizzy, she put up her uninjured hand to his chest, and then leaned against him, taking comfort from his solid strength. She was so tired. It was nice, after days of his impersonal attentions, to feel the blaze of his concern, and his arms around her at the same time. He kissed her again, drawing her closer, and she wrapped her arms around him. Then he drew back and taking her hands, his eyes on hers said, "Amanda-"

The door chimes interrupted him. Sarek turned his head, looking irritated at this invasion of his home's privacy. Unannounced visits were rare on Vulcan, and considered highly impolite. And whoever it was, if they had gotten through the security fields that surrounded the old fortress, they had to be someone who had known this. Over the years, after some unwelcome experiences with interstellar press, with the few rare but dangerous anti-Vulcan or anti-Federation crazies who made it on planet, and just out of sheer unwillingness to have his privacy violated, the list of people whom Sarek allowed to get to his door unannounced had become vanishingly small. And they were all Vulcans. She had occasional friends over, but she had never set any up for automatic access. Sarek's regard for her human friends, not that she had ever pushed the issue, could best be described as…well, questionable. And certainly wouldn't extend to any violation of their privacy. She could see his temper flare even now, at what had to be some legitimate visit, and pitied whatever aide or assistant had forgotten or overlooked calling ahead. When he was in this temper, they were sure to catch it.

Amanda leaned back against the counter, catching her breath as Sarek went to see who it was. He returned carrying a large flat box, wrapped in paper decorated with the markings of their clan. "This was delivered by T'Pau's ceremonial guard." He dropped the box on a table. "But it is for you." He stared at her accusingly, his gentle mood from minutes ago vanished as if it had never been. "I desire an explanation, my wife."

_Oh, god. Even when they're trying to be nice, mothers-in-law are trouble. Now it is me who is going to catch it. I don't need you causing more between Sarek and me! _"She didn't waste any time," Amanda commented, tossing the ruined, blood flecked vegetables into the recycler, and deciding on a pre-prepared meal instead.

Sarek was inexorable. "Amanda, what could T'Pau possibly be sending you?"

Amanda sighed. Going over to the box, she opened it so Sarek could see what it was with his own disbelieving and suspicious eyes and then went back to her preparations. "She sent me a dress."

"The robe worn by her personal attendants." Sarek said in incredulity as he drew the covering paper aside. He looked up, the finery draped across his hands. "Since when does my mother even deign to recognize you, my wife, much less count you on her personal advisory staff? As such a garment implies."

Amanda finished cleaning her blood off the counter and tossed the disposable wipe into the recycler. "Since when do you think?"

Sarek's visage darkened at this sign of their collusion against him. "I do not approve of this."

"You don't approve of the fact that your mother is no longer treating me like a human pariah?"

"I do not approve of **why** my mother is no longer treating you as such."

"Well, what do you want **me** to do about it?" Amanda folded her arms. "I can no more prevent her from recognizing me any more than I could do anything about her ignoring me. Sarek, **you** couldn't prevent her from shunning me all these years." She ignored how he bridled at this. "So when she orders me to attend her, what do you expect **me** to do? Have a shoot out with her guards when they come to pick me up? I'm not armed, and they outnumber me. I don't have a choice."

Sarek stared at her for so long, she grew uneasy. "What?"

Sarek dropped the dress back into the box, and straightened. "You are correct, my wife. You have no choice."

Amanda drew a breath, mentally kicking herself. Those words had another meaning and with him in this temper it could only mean-

"My wife, attend."

**Damn.**

_To be continued…_

_Copyright Pat Foley 2005_


	7. Chapter 7

**Holography 2**

**By**

**Pat Foley**

**Chapter 7**

The door closed behind Sarek, and for a moment Amanda lay still, one arm thrown over her eyes, fighting back tears. If she started crying over this, she would never stop, and so she was determined not to start. She had known, been painstakingly told, before she ever got married, that there would be times in her marriage when Sarek would make demands on her and she would not be able to refuse. She was no silly young girl besotted with romance. She hadn't been one even as a girl. And she had known, even before she'd gotten married, that her husband-to-be had a temper and that he could lose it. In spite, or even because, of his being Vulcan. No saint herself, she'd considered them well suited in that regard. The prospect of a few arguments hadn't cowed her, in fact, foolish girl as she'd been, she would have been bored at the prospect of a marriage without a few rocky shoals. She had said yes anyway. After nearly twenty years, it was far too late to start having second thoughts when what she had been warned might happen, and what she'd expected would happen, came to pass. As Sarek had reminded her, she had chosen otherwise.

And he was not going to let her forget it either.

But it was disconcerting when they happened together. The two had never dovetailed before like this. Until Spock had decided to defy Sarek and leave for Starfleet, Sarek had never before chosen to vent his temper or his anger in bed. She had no experience with him…punishing her…this way before. Nor was she used to him staying angry this long. It was, if she allowed herself to admit it, a little frightening. And far from getting over it, he seemed just as furious, if not more so, as time went on.

She sat up, glaring after Sarek. But her weariness seemed to rise up to claim her, and in that vulnerable moment, she found herself awash in a new flood of grief. She put her hands to her face, forcing back the tears. She choked the sobs back and flung herself back face down, her throat aching with the effort of suppressing them.

_I will not cry, I will not cry, I will not let them __**make**__ me cry! How dare he kiss me as if he loves me one minute and then coldly order me into bed the next. T'Pau's gesture was not my doing._

_Oh, why did she have to rub his nose in her sudden, oh-so-obvious recognition of me! _

Face it, you've been a point of contention between them for twenty years. First she punishes him by refusing to accept me, and now that she's angry with him, she's punishing him by doing the opposite.

I am tired of being used by that old witch to niggle her son. Tired of being a pawn in these games. When they get like this, I don't matter at all except as leverage for them, one way or another..

But I do matter to Spock. And how can I say no to her when she wants to help Spock?

Face it, no is **not** a word allowed in your vocabulary, Amanda. And you had better get used to it, because neither one of them will let you forget it.

I will not cry!

She sat up, breathing heavily. Got her legs under her and stepped out of the bed. After a moment, she reached to strip it, moving automatically, trying not to think about what she was doing. She had been putting their sheets on this bed, a bed she and Sarek had shared in love for years. But she was finding it increasingly hard to not resent remaking it day after day so that Sarek could use it as a place to punish her anew. There was something…more ignoble…in that action than in the punishment itself.

She'd been trying not to categorize what Sarek had been doing as that. She could, after all, find a host of logical reasons why her oh-so-Vulcan husband would find it necessary to take his wife to bed without affection. Or at least she had tried to tell herself that.

But it was time to face facts.

She took a water shower, needing to wash herself clean and then came out, a towel around her wet hair. She drew a few deep breaths to calm herself, then pulled on some light clothes, combed the tangles out of her wet hair, and went downstairs. One reason she was so lightheaded and tired lately was that she hadn't been eating at all. Nor had Sarek been letting her get much sleep. And it was time to start taking care of herself, before she really did fall apart. She would eat something, hungry or not, and then she would try to get a good night's sleep, for once. Perhaps it was best Sarek had …taken… her now, he might spend the rest of the night in meditation. She'd vote for that.

She padded down the stairs, and paused, seeing light spilling out from her husband's study. She had expected he'd be out at his favorite vantage point, playing the lord of all he surveyed. For a moment, she almost felt cowed, and she shook herself, surprised that Sarek's attentions had already made such a mark on her personality. She'd thought herself a relatively strong willed adult, but she found herself wondering how Spock had stood eighteen years as a child under that inescapable will and yet escaped, while she was finding it hard to face Sarek after only a short period of his displeasure. And she was his wife, not a dependent child. Well, she was going to have to get hold of herself, or she'd end up in a little puddle at Sarek's feet. And in his present mood, wouldn't that please him. She grimaced. Well, at least, for now, she didn't have to see him.

She went into the kitchen, and sorted through refrigeration units and cabinets, searching listlessly for something to tempt her. Cooking anything, even pre-prepared meals, seemed like too much effort. She finally settled on a bowl of the coarsely chopped whole grain cereal she used to keep around for Spock - he liked it, but Sarek never touched the stuff. So no one would eat it now but she. And it was so high in calories, she rarely had either. And a glass of milk. Yes, you could get almost anything on Vulcan now, even dairy products, though this was a synthesized construct she drank for the calcium. In this gravity, she had to take care of her bones. She'd been the one to teach Spock to pour it on cereal. He still did, now and then, when he was particularly hungry, even though Sarek raised his eyebrows askance. Well, at least Spock would have one near familiar thing to eat in Starfleet's commissary, and he'd have no Sarek there to shame him for it.

I miss my son.

And I miss my husband too.

She plowed through the bowl resolutely, considering each mouthful a success, even though her hand shook a little on the spoon. And it was hard to force anything past the lump in her throat. I really have to start eating again. At least I don't have to feel guilty about these calories. This time, I need them. She was just reaching the bottom of the bowl and was thinking of blissful sleep when she heard a familiar footstep. For a moment, she just felt his puzzled gaze on her back, like the echoes of a bad conscience.

"That's hardly suitable fare for an evening meal, my wife."

Amanda finished her last mouthful before answering and then picked up her dishes, striving for calm. "I can make you something else, if you like. You didn't eat, did you?"

He didn't answer. She felt his eyes on her. Puzzled. She felt, no knew, that he'd been honestly expecting she'd still be upstairs where he'd left her. Suitably chastened. As he'd intended.

Think again. You can knock me down but I'm not out. Not yet anyway.

She turned, meeting his eyes evenly. Determined to plumb this shame to the depths. Let him know that she knew what he was doing to her and she was not cowed. "Shall I? Prepare you something?"

She saw the incomprehension in his eyes. And the confusion. He didn't want to hurt her, and yet, obscurely, he had wanted her hurt. But there was also resentment, as if he was disappointed in her. If she would not cooperate, neither would he. "I am not hungry."

She tilted her head in the Vulcan equivalent of a shrug. She didn't believe him for one moment. Sarek ate lightly at mid-meal, when he didn't skip it entirely, and he was always hungry by this time. But she didn't care if he ate or not and she made her manner plain on that. "Then I'm going to bed. I'm tired."

She had to walk past him to leave the room, and for a moment, she thought she was actually going to make it out the door. But then he reached out and caught her.

She stilled, her heart in her throat, her pulse suddenly beating loud in her ears. His hands went down her arms, slid behind her back, turned her to him. Her long hair brushed his hands and he paused momentarily. "Your hair is damp." His tone was disapproving. Vulcans typically used Sonics, not water, and Sarek had never liked her hair wet. He didn't like her hair wet, he didn't like her skin sunburned, he didn't like it when she cut herself. Oh, she knew all his likes and dislikes. He was never shy about communicating them. Particularly the dislikes.

"I took a shower."

He looked at her, and curled his fingers around the ends of her hair. Coolly possessive. It brought back a sharp memory from twenty years ago.

They'd been married only a few months, and she'd been brushing her hair before bed. She'd looked at the ends, and said, "Darn, I'm going to have to find time to get this trimmed tomorrow, I'm seeing some split ends."

Sarek had been undressing, and he'd raised his head. "You will not."

She'd looked at him. "I'm not going to cut it off, just have a few inches trimmed."

"Never the less."

Blithe and amused, for they were still having problems in translation, she'd asked. "What are you saying, Sarek? That because we're married, my hair belongs to you?"

Sarek came up behind her, took her shoulders so that they were both facing the mirror. "I am saying that you" he let his grip tighten momentarily in emphasis on her shoulders, "are mine."

She'd turned in his arms, and he'd let her, while she'd searched his eyes, finding utter confirmation in them of what he was saying. "You're not serious?"

He'd nodded once, Vulcan style. "Completely." He let her go, and went back to undressing, satisfied that she understood him and the subject was closed.

She drew a breath. "So what would happen if I just went ahead and did it?"

He looked over at her sharply, and frowned - an expression that, this early in their marriage, she rarely saw when he looked at her. "Obviously there would be nothing I could do at that point. But if I found, as my wife, that you were so lacking in respect for the conventions of your role, then at least, on Vulcan, you would find fewer outlets for disregarding them."

"We're not going to Vulcan for another year."

"There is a regular starship run every week," Sarek said shortly.

"You'd take me to Vulcan for that?"

"You would have left me no choice, my wife."

She had shaken her head, trying to reconcile what he was telling her. She'd been told all about Pon Far and mating drives and why such biological imperatives required her eradicating the word no from her vocabulary as regards sex. But she didn't see what any of that had to do with the length of her hair. "Sarek, that is the silliest thing I have ever heard."

He looked over at her, only partially relieved. "Indeed, and I trust, my wife, that you will not engage in such unconventional behavior."

Not quite believing he'd so misunderstood her, she'd dropped the subject. She hadn't had her hair trimmed since, and it was down past her waist, a real nuisance to keep brushed and braided. Which Sarek, with his neat, short hair, didn't have to worry about. But she had discovered that no Vulcan woman cut her hair, it was one of those things that was just not done. Perhaps it was the old caveman thing, that Vulcan women left it long to make it easier for their husbands to drag them around. She didn't know. She had never really cared. It was a nuisance to care for, but she had enough to deal with of incomprehensible Vulcan disciplines that she couldn't master to worry about one that required so little from her.

She only knew that there always had been things, usually little in practice but with deeper meaning, that Sarek's Vulcan culture imposed on her as a result of her marriage. Some of them very visible drawbacks, that her human friends noticed and commented on adversely. How could she do this or put up with that. And there was some of that in her relationship with Sarek.

But there were compensations, some not even understood as such by Vulcans. She hadn't realized those when she'd been married either. No one had ever thought to tell her about those. They didn't know enough about human culture, and they were blind to the givens in their own.

The biggest was that, even before they were married, but absolutely afterwards, she had become the only woman in the world, no in any world, as far as Sarek was concerned. He didn't see any other woman as anything other than imperfect shadows, annoyances, scarecrows, nags, shrews, shams of women. She'd had plenty of evidence of that. Her husband was a handsome, powerful exotic man, and he could attract women like bees to honey. Over the years more than a few besotted females had vied for his interest, and his response was invariably a mixture of impatience and barely concealed disgust that sent them reeling back to human prospects and eyeing her with new respect. It would have been quite a sop to her vanity, if she hadn't understood the biology and psychology behind a Vulcan bonding. Like something out of Romeo and Juliet, whose dialogue she still remembered, even after all these years, she'd become the "snowy dove trooping with crows" as far as Sarek was concerned, the sole source of his interest. And not just compared to other human women. He was just as disinterested in Vulcan women. Not just in love with her, completely disinterested in other women. He hadn't looked at another woman since their marriage. Never noticed them, never saw them as such. He was only, absolutely, interested in her. Once she realized how absolute the phenomenon, it was a heady feeling. And Sarek didn't even seem to understand or care that he was unusual as compared to human males in this respect. He didn't want other women, even to look at, or notice, or think about. She was everything to him. And he was not just perfectly content with that, to him it was the most natural thing in the universe. That was bonding.

But there were still more compensations.

She hadn't realized that the first few weeks, or months of her marriage weren't just a honeymoon phase to Sarek. Learning all her responses, and mastering her body as easily as he'd mastered his own, didn't lessen the experience for him. Every night he took her to bed and every night she became, once more, the ultimate mystery to explore. She was his pleasure, his amusement, his delight. It was as if every night were Christmas morning, and she was the sole package to be unwrapped under the tree, forever new, forever desired, forever the ultimate fulfillment of his wishes. To the rest of the world, through the rest of his day, he was a logical Vulcan. But when they retired behind the doors of their bedroom, logic ended, playtime began, and she was his plaything, his possession, his ultimate toy, one he thoroughly enjoyed with the encompassing absorption only a Vulcan brought to his pursuits. And he expected that she felt the same about him. And far from considering this unusual, to Sarek it was utterly logical. And utterly satisfying. That what bonding was.

It was…quite a compensation.

Still there was no doubt that Sarek had a certain …proprietary… attitude regarding her that didn't sit well with independent human women – or independent anyone. She understood the biology behind that too, at least as well as a human woman could. But being a possession, a toy, even one dearly loved, still meant being … a toy. Even if she was only such to Sarek in private, a lot of her marriage was lived in private. She had sometimes wondered if Vulcan women found it as difficult as she sometimes did between an independent equal entity in professional life, and being sometimes treated by her husband as a quasi possession in married life. That it was only sometimes made it more confusing, to be accorded equal respect as an individual in some moments, and in others treated as …she hardly knew how to describe her many roles as a Vulcan wife, except to say that to a human woman more than a few would hardly be considered estimable.

She'd spent months, years in learning just where all her misconceptions lay regarding Sarek, Vulcan customs, Terran customs and herself. It was as if she'd engaged in a lifelong xenocultural experiment, with herself and Sarek as both the sole researchers and the sole subjects. She had never had time to get too caught up in one or the other petty issue, because the next day would bring a new issue, a new surprise.

So many of them she had just buried, left unresolved, hoping that in time she would understand. To her they were roles she played. Not herself. And she didn't think they were her to Sarek, either. She knew Sarek, or thought she did. Though perhaps she'd been deceiving herself.

As he fingered the damps ends of the hair she left long because he wanted it that way, she saw that he was struggling, and waging a mental war of his own.

She took a step out of his embrace. "Sarek, I'm really tired and if you don't want me to make you anything to eat, then I'm going to bed."

He looked at her. "You seem to have forgotten, my wife, that you do not tell me what you are going to do. I tell you what you are going to do."

Oh brother. She had miscalculated there, let her own weariness allow her to misjudge a critical moment. She tried to bluster out of it. "I asked you-"

"No." Sarek raised a finger to her lips. "We have an agreement, Amanda, which I will not let you deny, or ignore, or evade. You do not challenge me with impunity. Any such act between a husband and wife forfeits her status, even her life, and you have done this twice now in our marriage, each time with regard to your son. I am – perhaps regrettably – indulgent with you. As a human you do not understand our ways. Still, I am Vulcan, and there is a limit to my indulgence. I gave you your son's freedom. But I do not grant you yours. You are mine. And you will learn this."

For a moment she looked at him, gauging his will, his temper. It was unlike Sarek to be this possessive so recently out of Pon Far. A part of herself told her there was something wrong here, and she should back down. But a part of her refused to keep being pushed around this way. He wasn't in Pon Far, he was another two years from even the possibility. Even T'Pau had said there was no excuse for his behavior. "And if I choose to leave?"

"That is not an option, my wife. It has never been an option, regardless of your delusions to the contrary. But if you continue to challenge me, I will not only teach you what being a true chattel entails, but I will bring your son back here, and strive anew to teach him the discipline and obedience so obviously lacking in you both."

Her own temper was beginning to override her reason. "Don't threaten me, Sarek. And particularly not with our son. You leave him out of this."

"Threats are illogical, my wife. What I promise you will come to pass."

She looked at him, disbelieving. There was no emotion in his black eyes. "Why are you doing this to me? To us? I don't want to fight with you; I love you. But you're making it very hard for me."

"Love is irrelevant."

She drew up, wounded. "Be careful what you wish for, Sarek. That may come to pass too." She knew she was crossing a line. Even at the worst of their bad times, she had never once threatened him with that. Even when she threatened to leave him when Spock was eight. Her love for him had always been a given, even if her love for Spock had overwhelmed it at times. But if she was crossing a line, he had brought her to it, crossed it first.

Sarek took a step toward her, real threat in his stance, and she drew back, shocked herself at the violence of that near lunge. Then he halted, visibly controlling himself. "Go upstairs and wait for me." When she hesitated, equal parts rebellion and fear, he growled. "Now, my wife!"

It was go or further antagonize him when she could see he was barely hanging onto what little control he had. She fled.

To be continued...

copyright Pat Foley 2005


	8. Chapter 8

**Holography 2**

**By**

**Pat Foley**

**Chapter 8**

Amanda closed the door to the bedroom behind her, wishing that Vulcans believed in locks, even as she wondered what was going on between them. Sarek wasn't in Pon Far. What was happening to him?

She realized she had miscalculated again. Yes, T'Pau had intimated that Sarek was out of line. But she had also warned her not to give Sarek a fight. And yet she had done that very thing, challenged him even though she'd known his control was shaky and his temper was running high. Now she knew she should have stayed upstairs. Too late now.

And then she heard his step on the stairs. He hadn't waited long. She'd been hoping, expecting he'd get some control of himself, meditate, and calm down. But apparently he'd either chosen not to do that, or he'd lost his battle for control. She'd never imagined that familiar footfall could cause such utter panic to rise in her breast. She was really frightened, as she had never been even in Pon Far, realizing he was about to take that anger out on her.

She realized she was standing in front of the door, and moved to one side. When Sarek came through, she saw he had barely leashed his anger. She didn't resist at all when he reached for her. Some sane, sentient part of her recognized a berserk Vulcan, rationally assessed the threat level and immediately scaled down all her responses to zero, nada, nil. She didn't even try to run. She was, quite literally, paralyzed with fear. If ever she had seen a Vulcan male in madness, this was that time.

Later she realized that even as callous as Sarek had been before this, she had not truly understood the depths she could sink to. Now he was not merely pinning her hands, and uncaring of her responses. That was the absence of affection. This was fury. This was rape, pure and simple. She had never thought her husband capable of such an act, not the gentle, careful lover who'd tried so hard, with painstaking, almost intellectual curiosity, to understand her body. Perhaps he should have tried as hard to understand her **feelings**.

She had thought she understood something of rape, she had been through myriad pon fars, had suffered her husband's less than kind attentions, had an intellectual grasp of the crime. Nothing compared to the stark horror of his violent use of her body now. When Sarek pulled back from her, she was not the same woman she had been before he covered her. He hadn't merely violated her body, but also the deep core of trust and confidence she had always felt for him. In one respect, the woman she had been died, and a new one was reborn.

Inches away, she heard the harsh pants of her husband's breath, but he might as well have been light-years.

Nothing and no one can ever hurt me like this again, she thought, the relief profound, her last conscious thought before her mind escaped the way her body could not.

xxx

"Amanda?" Sarek touched fingers to her forehead, and drew a sharp breath. She had fainted. Though she had never done so before in her life, to his knowledge. He drew back and stared at what he had done to her. In a wash of revulsion, he slid out of bed, chuted the clothes he had not bothered to fully remove in his attack, and stepped into the shower. Amanda had left it set to water, and he did not notice. The shock of water at a temperature that might be warm to her, but icy to him, cleared his head of the madness completely. He left it on, as a punishment for his behavior in kind. When his senses returned he turned up the temperature to relieve his shivering and finally turned it off, drawing a robe around himself.

He was behaving like a pre-Reform male in the height of plak-tow, ready to challenge anyone. Yet he was not in the blood fever. And there was no one here to challenge him but his small human wife. At more than twice her weight, and a dozen times her strength, he could not continue to abuse her this way. Physically, she would not survive, and emotionally – he did not even try to convince himself that his final behavior had not been …perhaps…unforgivable. He held out a small hope, that at least his emotions were not as foreign to her as the violence of his recent attentions.

He pulled on clothes, staring at his wife. He had to get away, away before he hurt her again, and master this madness. He would go to the desert, meditate. But he was reluctant to leave, not knowing what Amanda would do. The image of Spock, going through the gate, leaving for the spaceport at Shikahr kept coming back to haunt him. What if Amanda did the same?

Slowly, reluctantly, he went to the house computer, and changed a few settings. He would apologize when he came back, when she woke. But she had to be here for that. This would ensure that she was.

xxx

Amanda woke slowly, her mind dull, her body aching. She sat up, feeling as if she had been drugged. Or beaten. Then she remembered, and she straightened, looking around the corners of the darkened room. But Sarek was not here. She rose, wincing. Her neck hurt where Sarek had grabbed her around the throat, her head ached. She felt a stabbing pain with each breath that spoke of cracked, if not broken ribs, and she didn't need to feel the trickle of blood between her legs to know she had some internal injuries.

Far worse than the worst of pon fars.

Moving slowly, she got herself out of bed. She took a few hesitant steps to the outer room of their suite. Empty too. She stood there, straining to hear over her own pain-labored breaths. But she heard nothing either.

She went back to the bedroom and stood there, arms wrapped around her aching ribs, not sure what to do.

This is escalating beyond belief, Amanda. Nothing you are doing warrants being treated this way. And no matter what you are trying to do to alleviate it, isn't helping. You need to put some distance between you and Sarek.

Get away.

Hell, get on a starship and get the hell out of there, a familiar, sane voice echoed to her across twenty years. Remember the old call for help? Mayday? I'm giving you a Mayday of your own, Mandy. As a wedding present. Just in case the wedding turns out to be a nightmare from which you need rescuing.

She had laughed at Thad, had never imagined it could come to that. Until now.

More fool she. He had been right.

Mayday. Mai'dez.

Help me.

She shivered. Warm as the room was, she was cold. Shock. She had to get out of here, and wherever Sarek might have gone, she didn't want to wait for him to come back. It came to her, with a new chill, that perhaps she was not coming back.

She thought that through, surprised that it seemed to cause her no grief, as if the ties of twenty years of marriage had been effectively divorced by one, even admittedly violent, act. But what else could she do? Wait around for him to rape her again, and maybe kill her the next time? That's where this was going. She couldn't reason with him, she couldn't placate him, and she certainly couldn't fight him.

With that in mind, she went into her husband's office. A moment's search of his logical files brought to light her Federation passport. She looked at it, then resolutely took it in hand. It was as well to have it. She had better get dressed.

She dressed quickly, ignoring telltale pains that warned her she had better seek some sort of medical attention soon. She took the passport and her other identification and credit certifications that she might need to back up her retina and palm prints – for humans were notorious about paperwork - and went across the gardens to the hanger where her flyer was stored. She'd stop at the Federation bank, pick up her 'wedding present', take it in certified funds. No doubt it had accrued to a tidy sum after all these years. That way she could book passage and jump on a starship shuttle without leaving a credit trail for Sarek to trace. She had discarded the idea of just camping out somewhere safe, as her home no longer seemed to be, while she thought things through. Sarek would find her quickly if she stayed on planet. And, in this temper, if he'd nearly killed her for verbally challenging him, he would kill her if he caught her running away.

Even the Terran Embassy would be no refuge for her. She was a Vulcan citizen now, and Vulcan justice had a long arm. By the terms of its treaty with the Federation, Vulcan law superceded Federation law in most cases where they came in conflict. Meaning her dual citizenship would do her no good if Sarek actually contested any Terran rights she might claim. And she doubted Terra would do her any favors anyway against Vulcan's political clout, especially as she was generally seen by them to be in the enemy camp, advising her husband for Vulcan's good against that of the human dominated Federation. If she went there, they would simply turn her over to Sarek the instant he inquired for her, both probably for some subtle revenge – she'd refused more than a few overtures urging her to persuade Sarek to deliver Vulcan to Terra at Terra's own terms - and for what little good will it would gain them with Vulcan's rulers – T'Pau's clan. That was no refuge at all. No, best to seek the safety of distance and anonymity on a nice commercial starship where all they cared about was whether she paid for her passage. That would give her room to maneuver. Maybe distance would help Sarek gain back the perspective he seemed to have lost.

And if not?

He has two years before his next Pon Far, Amanda thought. He's in no danger. Whereas you might not make it another week, the way he is going. Get gone, Amanda, and worry about the rest later.

She pushed her hand against the heavy metal gate that kept the desert predators out and the gardens safe. It didn't open. She'd been moving so fast, she was knocked back by the unexpected barrier, stumbling and falling in the heavy gravity.

She cried out as the impact knocked her bruised and broken ribs, one stabbing into her like a knife, the pain driving the breath from her lungs and making her see stars. For long moments she just lay there, fighting to stay conscious.

When the mists cleared from her eyes, found herself staring up at the gate, ornately scrolled and higher from this angle, the red sky showing eerily through the convoluted patterns. She was panting; stabbing pains worsening in her chest with every breath, finding it harder and harder to get oxygen in her lungs. She painfully picked herself up, and put her hand to the gate again. And it didn't move.

She swallowed. She'd lived in this house for nearly twenty years, and she'd never known that gate not to open instantly to her hand. She clung to it, as the red sky reeled over her head. It has to open. I have to get out of here.

Then she remembered. Was it only a few days ago? Sitting on the stone pilaster under the lematya carving and watching Spock go through that gate, wondering if Sarek was going to lock him in. He hadn't. But had Sarek regretted that and determined not to make the same mistake with his wife?

Don't be ridiculous, she told herself. You are upset. Making something out of nothing. Of course the gate will open. You just didn't try it right. You're not feeling well, your head is spinning, your ribs aching, you just didn't push it hard enough.

But a third try yielded no better result.

It's jammed, or broken, or something, she told herself. But it wasn't.

She looked around. One of the disadvantages in living in an ancient fortress, was that it was designed as such. Odd that she had never noticed, or considered or even had felt like this even applied to her as the remotest possibility of concern. The walls that separated the gardens from the desert outside were smooth stone, and topped, as was the gate, with a force field respectable enough to keep the wild lematyas that roamed the hills behind from jumping over into the garden. It would more than do to keep in one human.

I can't get out, she thought, in utter shock and surprise.

And some insane academic human part of her, trying to cope, followed with the phrase: as the starling said.

Laurence Sterne: Sentimental Journey. Jane Austen: Mansfield Park.

Amanda Grayson: Unimaginable nightmare

Oh, no.

I can't get out.

_Mai'dez._

Help me.

But, like the starling, there was no help.

Her hands loosened on the metal grille of the gate as she fought to stay conscious. She couldn't seem to get any air in her lungs any more. With every breath she took, the pain in her side increased and she seemed to take in less oxygen. The two issues warred in her body for a moment, and then the pain began to recede behind a red mist before her eyes that matched the red sky reeling over her head, curling into black edges. As the blackness spread across her field of vision, her eyes rolled up in her head. She reached out one hand in a last desperate gesture, but she couldn't seem to connect with anything. Her lax fingers slipped off the gate and she slid down to fall in the sand at its base.

_To be Continued…_

_copyright Pat Foley 2005_


	9. Chapter 9

**Holography 2**

**By**

**Pat Foley**

**Chapter 9**

T'Pau's chief counselor hesitated at the edge of the gardens where T'Pau most often held court. The venerable woman sensed her presence and looked out. "Thee have some issue for me, T'Lean?"

"There is concern regarding thy … thy family, Matriarch."

T'Pau's gaze narrowed. The word family, not kin or clan, meant a very personal issue, that could involve only a few people. "What is it?"

"The-" T'Lean choked on the word human, though she would have used it weeks ago, and in a pejorative tone. Now apparently that was past, even as the human had apparently disgraced herself and perhaps her kin. "Thy daughter-in-marriage has not appeared at her duties for two days. Sarek has not been seen at his duties for an equal time period. No one answers at their residence. Sarek…has recently been through a Time, it can not even be the rare incident of such a state taking a Vulcan unaware. There is concern among the human's—thy daughter-in-marriage's - …associates. She is considered – by them – to be diligent in her duties, and unlikely to neglect them without some notice given. There is concern. They ask questions that cannot be answered."

"Sarek is not to be found?"

"If he is home, he is not taking calls. No one wishes to intrude on his privacy. But the human's-"

"Enough of that! She is your clan leader's wife, and my daughter. You will speak of her respectfully, with the titles that are her due, or find another's service, T'Lean."

For a moment the Vulcan woman froze. Her position as chief attendant was not only long held, but hereditary. At one point it had been considered that she would be wife to Sarek - her family and position made her a logical choice. For many years she had cherished the thought, and held herself free from others, even as Sarek also delayed his choice, and remained unbonded. And then he had chosen that human. She had been surprised by the bitterness of her disappointment, unseemly for a Vulcan, but she had invested much of herself in the expectation, now forlorn.

Even afterwards, she had held herself free, fully expecting that the human would not stay. That Sarek would divorce the human, and turn to her as he was meant to. But as the years passed, and Sarek showed himself to be well and truly bonded, she had finally bonded herself to another, a widower already leaning to frailty. She had borne a child and tried not to think of what might had been. Even as she attended T'Pau in the palace that might some day have been hers, and crossed paths with the man she still regretted. Who never saw her as other than his mother's attendant.

She even had looked at Spock with a jealous eye, the heir that should also have been hers. She saw him when he came to visit his grandmother, traditional visits of duty. He showed little obvious sign of his mother's humanity. Indeed the boy surpassed her own son in academic skills, and he bore his grandfather's stamp of features. A worthy boy, even from an unworthy mother. If the human should leave, she would eagerly choose his father as her champion. Strong, virile and in the prime of life, Sarek would easily defeat the husband she had deliberately chosen with a view to a future divorce. As wife in Sarek's house, she vowed she would even raise his son as her own with never a mention given of his base heritage. She had thought all this, watching the boy with his grandmother,. Until T'Pau had dismissed him and he turned to leave. His eyes had met hers and in an instant she felt sure he perceived the full scope of her thoughts. Sarek was not a powerful telepath, but Spock was said to be so, and still young and hampered by his human heritage, his control was erratic. The boy's eyes had narrowed under his silky bangs, his face had set as if masking disgust, and he gave her a wide berth as he walked out, as if the very air around her shimmered with her ponderings. And she reconsidered - not her hopes, but her thoughts as to Amanda's son. It was said, in whispers, that he loved his mother. She had not thought that of him, he was too like his grandfather, too like Sarek, too obviously Vulcan for that to be true. But after that incident, after the way the boy pointedly avoided her when he came to see T'Pau, or when required to deal with her, had barely masked his distaste, she knew he had perceived her thoughts, her ambitions. And that he would never accept her as stepmother, kneel to her in fealty and willingly be raised as her child. What to do about Spock had worried her at times, the boy was accepted as T'Pau's heir, sealed in council. She could not easily get rid of him, even for a son of her own. The human might try to take her son with her, but seeing the favor which T'Pau regarded him, she knew that would never be allowed to happen. Of course, he could be sent away to school, as he was when his parents traveled off planet. More or less permanently. Perhaps Sarek would be relieved to be rid of the encumbrance. A disconcerting child.

But it had become a moot point. Years passed, Sarek waxed and waned in Pon Far, Spock grew to adolescence and the human served Sarek still, and willingly, from all evidence. No one had believed a human could ever withstand the madness of Pon Far, would stand up to the Fever, and submit to its demands.

She herself had felt the distaste of the Time's madness, the worse for being with one not of her choosing, and begun living apart from her own bondmate, seeking to lengthen the periods between his Times. But Sarek kept the human ever close to him, with the jealous possessiveness legendary in his clan, and his Times came at the minimum biology dictated. All the more bitter a regret for her, that another received the passionate attentions she felt were due to her, while she herself had none. T'Lean found it difficult even to contemplate that the human still reigned in the house she considered hers, supplanted her in the bed T'Lean believed was her own, and received the attentions of one she was not worthy even to serve as chattel, much less wife.

That the matriarch would also hold this human's honor above her own struck her dumb. And what her words implied was unthinkable. Though not of their clan except by marriage, Amanda's position as wife and mother to the present clan heirs technically gave her higher status in the clan than any woman except T'Pau. Technically.

Practically speaking, the human had never been legally recognized as a daughter by T'Pau before the Council. So her status was as nothing. Were T'Pau's words an indication that she would? For a moment, T'Lean resisted that thought before logic forced her to acceptance. The matter was solely T'Pau's to adjudicate. And had she not days previously, and now again, called the human daughter before her advisors? Not even daughter-in-marriage. A daughter so acknowledged, even privately, was a daughter; there were no shades to the title as it had been used. She met the old woman's furious eyes, and after a moment, lowered her own gaze. "I beg forgiveness, Matriarch."

"Continue."

T'Lean closed her own eyes a moment, in final resistance before giving the long shunned human the title that marked her as one of T'Pau's heirs as surely as her husband and son, and in-line to succeed the old woman as matriarch. Surely T'Pau was not serious. Not a human. But when T'Pau waited still, T'Lean bent her head and answered. "My Lady T'Amanda's associates are…. concerned. Shall I send your guard to inquire?"

T'Pau rose from her chair. "Yes. But I will accompany them."

It wasn't far via aircar, and T'Pau's flyer was soon settled on the sand by the hanger. Two of her guards went ahead, while the remainder helped her exit the aircar and escort her to the entrance. Before she crossed half the sand to the gate, she saw her guards gesturing to something on the ground. When they stepped aside, she saw her daughter, face down in the sand next to the gate.

At times like these, she was grateful to be matriarch. The gate opened to her hand, a few commands soon had Amanda flown back to the Terran medical center. And then T'Pau herself searched the house for her son. And found it empty.

She stood last of all in the bedroom where she herself had conceived her own son. The room was empty, but the furniture was largely the same, including the same wide bed. She crossed to it, unwilling but compelled, and looked down with dismay and disgust at the sheets stained red with human blood.

"Fah!" she said.

xxx

Mark Abrams, the physician attached to the Terran Embassy had been looking after Amanda since her first days on Vulcan. He'd seen her through a number of pon fars over the years and he was used to seeing her a little battered, but he looked shaken now, behind his professional calm. This was not a crime that one saw in a civilized society, especially between husband and wife. "She'll recover, but she should stay quiet for the next few days."

"She should not speak?" T'Pau asked, frowning in puzzlement. "How is this?"

"No, I meant she should stay in bed, resting quietly."

T'Pau nodded.

"We're lucky it is winter," Abrams added. "She'd never have survived two days in summer under that sun. She'd have died of heatstroke and dehydration. She nearly did as it stands."

"But she will not die," T'Pau asked.

"No. She'll recover from all her injuries. In time." Abrams hesitated. "Is Sarek here?"

"Why does thee wish him?"

"There are some things he needs to be told."

"Thee can tell me."

"I'd prefer to speak with Sarek."

"Thee must speak with me."

"This is between Sarek and his wife."

"Whatever is to be said, thee must say it to me."

Abrams hesitated, then spoke tersely, his disgust barely contained. "She has two broken ribs, a pneumothorax –one of the ribs collapsed her lung, internal injuries and she's been violently raped …torn. Plus a whole myriad of bruises from her neck to her thighs. That wrist he broke last summer he broke again." He looked at T'Pau's impassive face, shrugging when he got no reaction from her. "I've surgically repaired the lung and reinflated it, lasered the broken bones, and patched up the rest. But the internal injuries will take time to heal. A couple of weeks at least. And until then, she can't …suffer…any more of his attentions."

"Thee are not her mate," T'Pau said, "to make such a demand."

"No, but I'm her doctor. Do you want him to kill her? He could have this time. If he doesn't leave her alone until she heals, he will kill her. You tell him that."

"Are thee challenging for her, physician?"

Abrams stared at the matriarch. "My interests are solely as her physician. And friend to both of them. You can let Sarek know that too."

T'Pau nodded. "Is she able to be moved?"

"I can't send her home in this condition. She needs fluids, antibiotics, monitoring…"

"This is not care that requires a hospital."

"I can't – I won't – send her back to Sarek until I've spoken with him."

"She will recover in my home."

Abrams hesitated. "I don't see-"

"Physician," T'Pau met his eyes evenly. "She must recover in my palace. I will speak to Sarek. Thee could not."

At that, Abrams backed down, hearing what she was saying. There was no doubt that if he was dealing with a berserk Vulcan, which is what this all looked like, he couldn't deal with Sarek. And only T'Pau could. It was her duty in such cases, little as he knew of them. "All right," he agreed. "I'll have her prepared for transport. And I'll monitor her care there. I can send a nurse."

"My attendants will suffice. I have many skilled in healing."

Abrams sighed. "Vulcan healing is not Terran nursing."

"Vulcan has caused her injuries, and it is our duty to mend them. Thee are no longer required." When Abrams still hesitated, T'Pau looked at him imperiously. "Thee has no claim on her."

"Just… take care of her."

"She is my daughter, physician. I **will** see her well."

Abrams looked after the matriarch as she swept from the hospital, while such staff as recognized the venerable leader gawped in surprise, some flattening against the walls as she swept past.

"I guess if you say it that way, she doesn't have a choice ," he muttered. Then he turned back to sign the orders releasing Amanda to T'Pau's care.

xxx

T'Pau stood in her garden, listening to the fountain's play of water, the singing of birds and all the while her heart was breaking.

The guard was searching for her son in his usual desert haunts. She knew he was alive yet, her parental bond was thinned with the long spread of years since her son had grown to adulthood, but it was still there, a tendril that told him he was alive. For now.

For now.

What she had feared all these many years since Sarek had taken the human to wife had come to pass. She had not feared, even considered this. But from her first inkling of her son's passionate interest in this human female, she had feared, dreaded, expected, that one day, the incompatibilities of Vulcan and human would rise in some problem. That the woman would reject him in Pon Far, that he would kill her, even unrejecting, that he would despair and die. He was so closely bonded to her. If he would not take another, even consider another, before he had bonded to her, what would be the outcome now, when so many years of bonding had made him even more resolute.

And it had come to pass, not as she had expected, but close enough. He had nearly killed his wife, and now his own life was forfeit. Not through the law, for what need was there of law when biology was its own law.

She had brought the girl here, from the hospital, from her own people, in a last, desperate action. And yet, what would it avail? She could keep the girl here, for a time, but nothing could stop what was to come. A Vulcan woman, after such an event at this, would choose challenge. There were Vulcan males who favored the old ways, professional challengers who would fight for a fee, for the reward involved in freeing a female from an unwanted marriage, to release her afterwards when the reward was paid. A human, already so injured by a berserk spouse, could not be expected to do more than a Vulcan. Sarek was young and strong, but in such cases as his, when a male attacked a beloved wife, more than one Vulcan would suicide in Kah-li-fee, would leave himself open to the sword, lest he kill in truth. Sarek might do this for her. He might die anyway in challenge if he did not. The challengers were skilled at their profession; they seldom lost. If he still yet won, and he killed her in the madness that followed a challenge, he would no doubt die anyway, either by his own hand in despair or because he would not be able to take another. His chances were small, so small as to be infinitesimal. T'Pau saw death all around her and no way out, save in the sifting breaths of a human, already half dead when she'd been found. She had known this was coming, from her first sight of the continued bruises on the girl's wrists and arms, bruises Sarek would never inflict if he had been in his right mind. She had seen it coming and she had done nothing.

Well, what could be done? There was no remedy, no cure, for what she suspected of her son's condition. Her son breathed still, somewhere, but death was all around. Only the girl could help him. That human girl…

From the first day Sarek had told her of his passion for the human, when T'Pau had known a human held her cherished son's life in her hands, T'Pau had been leery, waiting for the human's betrayal that she felt sure was to come. Before she had even met her, sight unseen, she had…hated…the girl who she had felt would be the cause of her son's eventual death. She had refused to give her sanction to the marriage, to speak to Amanda, to even suffer her presence. She would not look in the face of the one who would be his downfall. She had dreaded the coming of Pon Far in her son, amazed when Sarek emerged each time so well served, the human alive – and still in love.

She had come to realize she had been wrong. But then had come Spock. She had at first been as adamantly opposed to the idea of Amanda's son as her heir as she had been to the idea of a human daughter. And then Sarek had forced her hand, brought the boy before Council to be sealed as heir. And she had no choice but to meet him. And she had been…lost. Even at three, a baby, a toddler, there was something in that boy that had …conquered her. It was not merely that he had, even then, her own bondmate's cast of features. He had his manner too, his aura - her bondmate's own true son, in the half human boy of a once hated human girl. She had looked into those eyes, wise beyond his baby years, and it was as if she had recognized him instantly, known him to the depths of her soul. And felt that he had recognized her. All her previous objections had become as naught. Indeed, though outwardly she was still the judgmental matriarch, inwardly she had become his champion, determined that if he failed, it would not be through her lack of support.

And though she had come to reconsider her treatment of Amanda, she had sacrificed her again in the face of Spock's needs. There was enough resistance to a half-human clan heir that it had served T'Pau best that she continue to leave her daughter shunned, out of the circle of clan politics until Spock's position was assured. She had …sometimes…regretted not knowing her. Her son, his son, held her in such regard, cherished her so much, that T'Pau at times felt almost jealous, bitter, not only in not having that acquaintance, even if it was at her own choice, but in being left out of the circle of family where she was entitled to be. Not that T'Pau didn't have her own circle. There were two in their family, one of herself, Sarek and Spock, and one of Amanda, Sarek and Spock. Two circles completely separate. But it was not the same as one. She had had no daughter.

And now, when Spock was finally grown and she had decided she could allow the acquaintance, now had come this horror. For horror it was, and would be. For all in their family circle. She had nearly gained a daughter, now only to lose her son, and perhaps the girl as well.

T'Pau had never expected, and quailed before, what had come to pass. And if she did, what could she expect of a human. No. The girl had seen much of Vulcan biology, and remained resolute, but that was normal, natural Vulcan biology, what she had been prepared for, and agreed to, and was apparently honorable enough to fulfill as her obligation. There was no obligation bound on her to tolerate this.

Not even a Vulcan would tolerate this.

And yet she had taken the girl from her own people, from those who had been asking after her, concerned and justifiably so. An illogical effort to stave off what could not be prevented. She'd been unwilling to risk that the girl might leave, might be whisked off planet by her own people before she herself could think what to do. And now she had her, ensconced in the suite that was hers by right of marriage. And T'Pau had doubled the palace guards around her son's fortress and her own palace, set a guard outside the girl's very door, as if Amanda's own people might still attempt to retrieve her, as if this were some pre-Reform prelude to war between clans. It was illogical. And yet, with the girl's fragile life the only thing that stood between Sarek and death, T'Pau had been unable to stop herself from taking possession of her, virtually abducting her from the hospital, setting her guard, steeling herself in her own mind, if nowhere else, to a near war footing for the first time in 5000 years. An instinctive reaction, proving she was not far removed herself from the ancient ways. And what would it all avail? There was nothing to be done.

Human or Vulcan, this girl had rights. This was not pre-Reform Vulcan. There was the law, and T'Pau, as matriarch was the adjudicator in such cases as these. Honor required her to serve all, unbiased. She would have to speak to Amanda of her options. Advise her. Even as it sealed her own son's fate.

How ironic, that fate required her, T'Pau herself, to advise her once hated daughter to reject her son. What a judgment on the judgmental.

But T'Pau had little thought for the irony, swept in grief as she was.

Her son lived, and yet was dead. What she had feared had come to pass, but not through the deception of a human, but through the inexorable demands of Vulcan biology, reaching forward 5000 years to claim her son's life. And T'Pau mourned him. Her eyes were dry, but inside she wept tears more copious than the fountains before her.

_To Be Continued…_

_copyright Pat Foley 2005_


	10. Chapter 10

**Holography 2**

**By**

**Pat Foley**

**Chapter 10**

T'Lean stood in the darkened room, watching the human breathe. Such shallow breaths. In. Out. So easy to …cease. A hand, a pillow. A brief struggle, very brief, for a weak Terran female, already so depleted. And the human would cease to breathe at all. No one would wonder how it came to be, think her ceased from her injuries. Nothing would come to Sarek, for a male in the fever, as he must be again to have done this, was excused of the crime of murder if it occurred in the time, and against a wife, or rival. And such a wife as this, who would even care?

So easy. She drew closer. And wondered anew what Sarek saw in this human. She was so…Terran. So obviously Terran. There were Terrans with dark hair, decently black eyes, olive shaded skin. But not this female. Her skin, her lips were flushed with the red of her blood, skin so fair T'Lean could see the blue veins tracing her bare limbs, Her hair was the color of Sol, a paltry yellow star. Her eyes blue again, like Earth's sky. She was disgusting. Slight, small, weak, fair…she seemed unfinished, unformed, insubstantial. A ghost woman – who would care if T'Lean moved her ghost presence from mere appearance to stark reality. Let her be a ghost in fact.

T'Lean had not heard the circumstances of why Sarek had chosen this female but she had assumed what most had. If Sarek had been caught in some way by the Time, and had chosen a Terran in desperation, why not one outwardly Vulcan in appearance, at least, instead of one that embodied all that was the Terra that he had allegedly found so discomforting. For he had never returned there after his first assignment, sent others in his stead. He brought only this female back. A dubious, constant reminder of what he must despise. Would he not welcome her assistance in ridding him of her?

She moved even closer, hovering. Leaning down over the human. She raised a hand, brought it near to her face. And then Amanda stirred, limbs shifting, and T'Lean drew back, heart pounding at the thought that the human was waking. She had the courage to snuff a fading life but not to look in those odd eyes and kill her outright. She turned swiftly and exited the room, to where a servant stood waiting.

"Tell the matriarch the human is awake."

And when the woman had left, T'Lean leaned back against the wall and thought, If only she had stayed quiet a little longer.

xxx

Amanda woke in an unfamiliar place. A flurry of movement, a presence sensed, made her try to sit up, focus her eyes, but if there had been one, it was gone by the time she was fully aware. Blinking, she looked around at the room, a Vulcan furnished bedroom designed with the spaciousness favored in a telepathic society, where personal space is a considered a necessity. She could see other rooms in the suite, and a long balcony complete with floor to ceiling windows with a view of the Llangon mountains. But no people.

Sitting up brought a sharp gasp from her, and the gasp made her ribs hurt so much she saw stars, and had to close her eyes. She heard the click of a door and opened them to see T'Pau, of all people, enter.

"Where am I?" She croaked. And then coughed. Her throat was sore, as if she'd been throttled.

T'Pau sat down on the edge of the bed, and offered her a glass of water. Amanda took it gratefully, and didn't look up till she downed half its contents.

"Thank you."

"Does thee not recognize thy own rooms?"

Amanda peered around the unfamiliar place, then realized T'Pau must mean Sarek's suite, her family's suite in the old palace. She had never been here before, which certainly T'Pau must know and for some reason was choosing to overlook. "How did I get here?"

"I had thee brought here. Thee were found very ill, daughter."

"Sarek…"

"Yes. Thy husband is also not well."

Amanda met her mother-in-law's eyes, hearing a tone in the last that made her steel herself for the worst. "What is wrong with him?"

A long silence, with the matriarch's eyes on her. "Thee are concerned?" T'Pau finally questioned.

Amanda sat up, ignoring the various stabs of pain. "How can you ask? Where is he? What is wrong with him?"

"Thy injuries are at thy husband's hand."

"If he is ill, he couldn't help it."

T'Pau simply sat there, studying her, as if reluctant to go on.

Amanda drew a sharp breath, ignoring the pain. "You can't think that Sarek would deliberately hurt anyone. Especially me. I'm his **wife**." She looked at T'Pau's unyielding face and said in disbelief. "You are his mother!"

"And I see that thee are his wife. I am relieved that my daughter honors her husband, even when his actions are less than honorable." And yet T'Pau still did not answer her.

"Tell me what is wrong with him, Mother. Please."

"Thee are aware of the Kal-I-fee?"

"Yes," Amanda admitted guardedly. It had been one of the things she'd been instructed about before she married Sarek. That divorce on Vulcan generally implied a violent combat to the death.

"I believe Sarek considers himself in challenge—over you."

"That's ridiculous."

"Thee have been in contention."

"Yes, as you know, over Spock's leaving for Starfleet. And we have argued. Had words. I won't deny they've been heated. And when Sarek told me he intended to deny Spock the right to ever come home," she missed the faint pained expression on her mother-in-law's face at this, "I told Sarek that if Spock was not welcome, neither would I stay. But he backed down, and I did stay."

"And he has been angry since. The marks you have borne, these are the result of his violent possessions?"

Amanda flushed at such a question from T'Pau. "Yes. He has been angry, such that I couldn't alleviate it. I haven't understood what is wrong. Well, that is not true, but I haven't known what to do. I thought… I kept hoping he would…get over it."

"You thought he would …**get over**… such emotions as these?" T'Pau sounded astonished.

Amanda colored again, lowering her head. T'Pau at times had the unwelcome capacity to make her feel like a child before her. A stupid child. "Humans do," she said, her voice small but resentful. She was so tired of these Vulcans making her feel like a fool. Tired of the never ending complexity of living as a sole human in a Vulcan world. Not that she was the only human on Vulcan, but she was the only one in this circle of Vulcans, the only one embroiled in T'Pau's inner circle. For the first time in twenty years she thought to herself, I want to go home. And home meant Earth. She was so surprised by the thought, she almost missed T'Pau's next words.

The matriarch shook her head in unVulcan astonishment at such an assumption. "Thee have not married a human, T'Amanda. His passions are not human. Why does thou think we have instituted such controls?"

"Sarek has always had a temper and he has lost it before. Never like this, but how would I know otherwise? And whose counsel could I take if I had questions?"

"Thee would take mine. As I have tried to counsel thee when my suspicions were first aroused."

Amanda looked at her, her resentment not small. "After twenty years of rejection, you cannot believe that would be an option I would find easy to consider or pursue."

T'Pau sighed. "I see there are yet repercussions to my actions. We have spoken before of this. I have tried to make it clear to thee."

"Yes, you have. But trust is not simply a matter of words for humans. It is also …emotional. I think that is true for Vulcans as well."

"For some trusts, yes. And for what must pass between us now, this needs be one of them."

Amanda searched the matriarch's unrevealing face. "I don't understand T'Pau. What are you saying about Sarek? What is wrong with him?"

"He perceives," T'Pau struggled with how to explain this to a human, "that you have challenged."

"But that's ridiculous. I haven't asked for a divorce, or chosen a champion. I have… yielded to him, Mother, every time."

"I do not say that you did challenge, but that he perceives such. Perhaps it could be said…that thy champion is thy son. Seeing Amanda's lack of comprehension she clarified. "Thee favored the child over the father."

Amanda stared at T'Pau. "But Sarek and I have fought before about Spock, and while he has gotten angry, he has never behaved like this."

"Your son declared his adulthood. Defied his father. And …you love your child."

"He's my son."

"Yet your …emotions… are not common to a Vulcan woman. Sarek is a Vulcan male in the prime of his life T'Amanda, and thee are his wife. He will not …tolerate…any rivals to his mate's attention. Not even a grown child of his house."

"T'Pau, I **can't **stop loving my son."

"T'Amanda, I believe thy husband is in plak vrie, the blood syndrome." The matriarch waited, but Amanda only looked puzzled, as if searching her memory.

"I have never heard of this."

"It is not quite the acute madness of the plak tow, but a chronic condition that can be as or even more dangerous. He perceives that thee has challenged him, and his passions have been aroused. Once aroused, such passions are not easily quieted."

"So he **is** ill." Amanda sighed. "I should have …I knew something was wrong."

"Not ill. He has no disease. It is a condition, a factor, of his biology. A syndrome. Thee could not know of this. It is very rare."

"But you are saying he can't help himself."

"Thee are the only one who can offer him help."

Amanda drew a deep breath. "What must I do?"

T'Pau considered her, not quite believing the human's response. "Thee will not like it."

"Just tell me."

"T'Amanda, a female who challenges, becomes property of the victor. She has no rights, no property, no status in society. She has no voice. She has no presence."

"How long?"

"Forever."

Amanda made a single, strangled sob, deep in her throat.

"T'Amanda. Thee has **not** challenged. Legally, thee has done nothing wrong. Even a Vulcan mother can protect her child."

Amanda turned. "But you are saying Sarek perceives that I have."

"His blood burns."

Amanda wiped her tears away. "Is there no cure?"

T'Pau hesitated. "He may come out of it in the natural course of time."

Amanda looked up. "Is that all you have to offer? My God, **when**? When he kills me? When I am terrorized enough that I leave, and that kills him? How bad does this have to get, before we **do** something? There must be some recourse."

T'Pau was quiet. "I will not make light of this, T'Amanda. My son desires you fiercely. His condition is serious, and dangerous. If it is not attended to, it will worsen, rather than dissipate."

She searched that emotionless face. "He will die?"

T'Pau nodded. "Undoubtedly not before he kills thee."

Amanda closed her eyes in pain. She shook her head. "No. I will not let him die because of me." She looked up. "Did I really do this to him?"

"It has been suggested by the healers that because you are not Vulcan, his passions have no check." T'Pau looked at her human daughter's crumpled face with compassion. "But I do not believe this. Nor should thee. Our line goes back to Surak. We were once the greatest warriors. We have the strongest passions. Our control has always been hard won. My son has always been…headstrong. From his first meetings with you, he desired you. I did my best to dissuade him and he would have none of me. Such a passion has been of deep concern to me since then… for it can be difficult to control, and can as easily spiral out of control. I would have wished he had never met you. It requires the strictest attendance." She flicked an eyebrow. "You have done well to manage it these many years. I know my son has tried to follow our disciplines. And you have honored them as well."

Amanda looked back on twenty years of marriage, and saw all the times she had failed them herself, or worse, tempted Sarek past them. How she had sometimes hated the lessons and controls Sarek had imposed on them. Thought them unnecessary. And he had been right after all, and she had been wrong. Love didn't save one from Vulcan biology. "Not completely, no. Oh, this **is **my fault!"

"He is Vulcan. We are warriors as well. Thee are only Human. Little more than a child. Thee were only a child when he took thee to wife. I do not agree with thy assessment."

"By Vulcan standards, my age is little more than a child, but that is not so for humans. I take responsibility for my actions. And my failings."

"Vulcan or human, child or woman, thee are female. It was for Sarek to control, and thee to yield. That is our way."

Amanda lowered her head. "I was not the most submissive of wives."

"T'Amanda, I have also been a wife. Does thee think submission easy even for Vulcan women?"

Amanda looked up, coloring, but also in disbelief that T'Pau should be the one Vulcan woman who would discuss this with her.

"Our practices have reasons, but they are no guarantee. I tell thee that Sarek has always been headstrong and passionate." She eyed the human woman before her. "I did not think thee would survive five years, much less twenty. In this circumstance, Spock's disobedience and your defense of him and challenge came too closely on the heels of Sarek's last pon far. The flames were not entirely extinguished before they were rekindled at this chronic level It was … an unfortunate combination of events that created a catalyst for his condition. Not thee."

"What can be done? There must be something. Some treatment? Some hope?"

"The next acute phase may dissipate this situation."

"But that's two years away. I can't…" she hesitated. "Mother, I do not think either of us can withstand Sarek's anger for that long. If it continues to escalate as it has begun, neither one of us will survive."

"I concur. Thee have only a few options, none estimable." T'Pau steeled herself to give the counsel she must to the girl. It was her duty as matriarch, even when the life was her son's. "Thee can choose a proper champion and challenge-"

Amanda stared at her, stunned. "What are you saying?"

"According to our customs, it is your best chance for life. Custom does not require you to stay with a husband in such a dangerous state. If the challenger you select defeats Sarek, you would be free of his violent passion. Even if Sarek defeats him, the combat will likely spur him into a pon far, which you have survived successfully before. He may kill you, but he may not."

"No. That's impossible. There must be a better solution."

T'Pau eyed her. "Thee can continue your present course, hoping time will heal him."

"That's not working."

"I agree." T'Pau considered her a moment, regretfully, but said the words that must be said.. "Thee are an outworlder. Thee have an option that would not be considered by Vulcans. Thee can leave."

Amanda stared at her, stunned. "You want me to leave? Leave him like this?"

"I did not speak of want."

Amanda frowned in confusion. "Do you want me to leave because you have someone else you want him to bond with?"

T'Pau shook her head, eyes on Amanda. "In his condition he would refuse any other. That is not an option."

"So you expect me to leave him … to just let him die? For he would die if I did that, wouldn't he?"

For a moment, the matriarch hesitated, then she nodded, no emotion on her face. Amanda knew it was not for lack of them, but only from strict control practiced. "In agony."

Amanda drew a breath in horror. "No. T'Pau, I can't. How could you think it of me? I may be only human, but I have absorbed something of Vulcan culture. I will not leave my husband to such a death."

"The alternative if thee refuses to challenge is to stay and face that he undoubtedly would cause yours. Your chances, T'Amanda, are very small."

"Smaller than his if I leave?"

T'Pau would not be drawn. "Small. And then he will die anyway. It is a forgone conclusion. Thee at least would live."

Amanda blinked, tears spilling from her eyes. "Is there no alternative of which you have not spoken?"

T'Pau hesitated. "There is yet a final, rare option. Less pleasant perhaps than the others, but…"

"Tell me!"

" Just this. A chattel cannot rouse the same anger as a bondmate in challenge. A chattel is a possession only."

"But you said-"

T'Pau was silent for a long moment. "This syndrome is rare, but it has occurred in our line before," she finally said, her gaze thoughtful, words slow. "A wife who made peace with an enemy clan to prevent a devastating war. Her bondmate was also recently post pon-far, and succumbed to the vrie. Rather than raise challenge and divorce, flee or allow her husband to succumb, T'Ianye choose chattel status, hoping that would ease Surak's flame. She was successful. And she was honored for that sacrifice. Surak recovered, returned her to bondmate status and acknowledged her role in pursuit of peace."

"The wife of Surak?"

"As I said, it was in our direct line."

"I had never heard of this."

"It is rare. This is not a condition of which we take pride."

Amanda drew a deep shuddering breath. "So you believe that my choosing this would also curb Sarek's aggressive spiral? Maybe cure him?"

"It should help to relieve the aggression. The chattel state is countenanced and practiced in our society for this reason, in cases where the alternative would invariably be death. It may cure. T'Amanda, this is millennia old legend. A Vulcan woman in your position chooses challenge, always. Logically, her chances are much greater."

"Even as either her husband or her champion dies?"

"This is true. Her chances are greater then those who fight for her. Her choice of challenge is thus a logical one."

"I'm glad I'm not...logical, then." She hesitated. "Are you sure about this legend? Is it really feasible?"

"There is no more immediate precedent for choosing chattel status. I do not tell you what to do, for there **are **no absolute answers. No preferable answers."

"But you think this is his best chance to live?"

T'Pau studied the girl, surprised anew at her determination. She seemed to think nothing of herself. Perhaps she did not yet understand. She was not lacking in intelligence, but intelligence came in all forms. "It is his best chance to live. It is not **your** best chance to live."

Amanda bridled. "I will not flee on a starship and leave my husband to certain death, nor will I hire some thug to attack him. I married him, T'Pau, for better or for worse. If this is worse, then so be it." She looked at T'Pau. "Now that I know, now that there is a reason for what is happening, something I can address, perhaps, alleviate, it is my duty to stay. Don't you see that?"

"I see it, T'Amanda. I did not think that you would."

Amanda flushed. "Because I am human."

"Because such risk combined with such status offers no logical benefits to any Vulcan woman. I would not expect anyone to freely choose it. I meant no insult to thee. It has simply not been chosen in millennia."

Amanda looked uncertain in turn. "I don't know anything about the history involved or of choosing such a status. So little of your ancient culture. Sarek tries to explain it to me sometimes but I confess I have never been a very attentive pupil. I did not …believe… the relevance, for us. Do you have the text of this legend?"

"I will see you are provided with it, and a historian to interpret for thee."

Amanda looked uneasy. "As to the latter, please…don't. I would rather not discuss my marriage or my options with… strangers."

"T'Amanda, our clan historian may be unknown to thee, but it is his function and role to attend in service to the clan rulers on such points as these. It is his duty to thee as such."

"I am not-"

"Thee are wife to Sarek. The role is attendant. He would perform it with honor…and honor thee in the execution of it."

"Even so." Amanda sighed. "If I must discuss it with him, I'd prefer that you also be present."

"I am honored. This is wise. Thee understand what might be relevant millennia ago will still need to be amended by thee for current society."

Amanda put her head in her hands. "How am I, as a Human, even with your aid, supposed to apply the circumstances of a 5000 year old Vulcan legend that I don't even understand, to a rare almost unknown illness not even Vulcans are all that familiar with and extrapolate out a current solution? I am not a Vulcan scholar or xenologist, or a Vulcan healer. I am not qualified for this. And it is my husband's life at stake. And my own."

"It will be difficult, but as it is your husband and your life thee **are** the most qualified."

"There are times, Mother, when I wish I had never heard of Vulcans."

"Understandable. But when such wishing is done, the problem still exists. While it is daunting, certainly you will be given such council as you desire. Then you need only consider the continuum of what can be done, T'Amanda, and choose among it for your solutions.

Amanda nodded slowly. T'Pau's matter-of-fact recital of what needed to be done was calming. "Very well."

"I will have the text brought to thee. When thee have reviewed it, we will conference. We believe Sarek has gone to the desert to meditate, but when he returns, we will send thy husband to thee." T'Pau paused. "Thy husband, T'Amanda. Remember, that even if thee chooses chattel status, thee are still wife. Thee has not challenged."

"A difference which makes no difference is no difference," Amanda said, numbly quoting a Harvard philosopher she had once studied as a student there.

T'Pau flicked an eyebrow. "Logical." She rose and left the room. Amanda waited until she had gone before saying softly to herself. "And there are times when I am sick to death of **that**, too."

_To Be Continued..._

_copyright Pat Foley 2005_


	11. Chapter 11

**Holography 2**

**By**

**Pat Foley**

**Chapter 11**

They did not find Sarek. Rather he returned to his home, over the sheer rock walls that were a natural defense behind the old fortress. When he was spotted, the guards posted there notified the Palace. Sarek arrived still dusty from his desert trek, his control a thin mask.

"Where is she, Mother?"

"Sarek, wait-"

"How dare you take her from my home! She is mine!"

"Kroykah!" The ancient command halted Sarek as if it were a phaser stun. "Thy concern is belated. If I had not so taken her, she would have died from the injuries you inflicted upon her."

Sarek froze, sheeted pain behind his eyes. "I did not-"

"Yes. Thee did."

Sarek took a shuddering breath, and T'Pau guided him to a chair. "She will live. Her injuries were serious, and lack of attention magnified them. But she is in no danger now. Thee can rest easy on that score."

Sarek raised his eyes to his mother. "Your interest in my wife, Mother, is belated as well. I would wish thee would leave us in peace."

"Thee are not in peace."

"By your interference."

"Thee blames me?"

"I blame thee for using her as a pawn between us."

T'Pau was silent a moment, not denying some truth in that. "What is past is past, my son. It is your future of which I am concerned."

"Leave her alone, and my future is secure."

"Sarek, surely you realize thy actions were not …normal."

"I…lost …control. But I was provoked. It will not reoccur, particularly if thee will cease to pry into my personal affairs. Thee cared nothing for my wife all these years, do **not **seek her attentions now."

"Sarek, I believe thee are in plak vrie. Thee must realize this is true. Would my attentions to T'Amanda cause such a response were it not so? Would thee so abuse a long cherished wife if it were not so? Would thee reject a child-"

"That is enough!"

T'Pau subsided. "If thee cares at all for thy wife, Sarek, then thee must let the healers determine thy condition. Thee owe it to her. Let it go unrecognized and next time, she **will** die."

He lowered his head, a muscle in his jaw twitching.

"Thy fear is natural. But whatever is to be found, thee need not fear."

Sarek raised his head. "You have spoken of this to her." It was not a question. "How dare you!"

"I have told her of the possibility. Sarek, it is her right to know."

"Can you not even spare her this?"

"It is past sparing. My duty to both of thee requires me to speak of this equally. Thee has options. She has options."

"She is mine!"

"Sarek, you must let the healers examine you. They can offer some help, even if only temporary. Enough to discuss this, at least."

"Very well," Sarek rose. "I will do this now…for her. But then," he fixed T'Pau with a determined gaze. "Then I will see her, Mother. And thee are **not **to interfere."

"No. I will not," T'Pau promised. And as Sarek left, she raised her eyes to the rooms above where the human slept. And waited. And then she waited herself for the conclusion she knew was forgone. Her son had never spoken so to her. He was in vrie. A madness not acute, but chronic, that could last not just for the few days of Pon Farr, but for weeks, months, seasons, years. Unlike Pon Farr there were no rituals to get one through it, no hope that it would soon lift, no anticipated conclusion. His rage could know no bounds, have no ending. He might pull himself out of it, he might not. But there was no known cure. And only one surcease.

His life now depended on a human willingly facing that, defenseless.

Even T'Pau quailed.

_To be continued…_

_copyright Pat Foley 2005_


	12. Chapter 12

**Holography 2**

**By**

**Pat Foley**

**Chapter 12**

T'Pau came slowly, reluctantly to the rooms where her daughter recovered from her son's first attack. They had had several conversations in the time before and after Sarek returned, discussing possibilities. She had been …amazed at the human's fortitude before such prospects. Amanda had listened to the clan historians recite the relevant legend, attended while they extrapolated modern equivalencies, examined options, considered Sarek's needs, her needs, and made hard decisions, standing ground on only a few minor points. She feared for her future, and that of her husband. She cried tears, unashamed, over her options before the impassive Vulcans surrounding her. And yet, stood firm in spite of her tears, her fears. T'Pau had long associated emotion with weakness, she had never seen it demonstrate a point of strength, yet T'Amanda seemed undiminished by her tears, even the stronger for them. T'Pau considered she just might survive. And…her son as well. If the girl could just steel herself to go through with it. She had been resolute so far, but she yet had to face Sarek, and actually give up her past life. T'Pau could not believe it, could not hope in the strength of a human, until that happened. And that time had come.

She entered, and Amanda, not sleeping, rose a little.

"Sarek has been found and brought here."

Amanda looked up, her eyes full with both hope and dread.

"The healers have examined him. Experts have been brought and have confirmed. His condition is as we suspected."

Amanda lowered her gaze to her hands. "That's it, then."

T'Pau looked down at her. "If thee are ready, I will send him to you."

Amanda hesitated, forestalled her. "Is he…"

"He has been with the healers. Their assistance has given him a…temporary level of control. It will not last, but it should last until this is done."

"All right. I'm ready to see him."

Sarek stepped into the room and paused just inside the door. "Greetings, my wife."

She swallowed hard at the sight of him, remembering their last encounter, and curled her hands more tightly around her knees. "Sarek. Come in, please."

He crossed over to her slowly. There was no threat in his stance or his visage, but she still tensed when he moved to sit beside her on the bed. "Amanda, I regret-"

"No." Amanda shook her head, forestalling him. "Don't apologize. I don't want to discuss …that. Just - can you bring me something to write on, Sarek?"

He hesitated, then he went to a table across the room, and came back with a pad and a stylus.

Amanda rubbed the back of her hand across her eyes, and began to write. "I have been thinking. Do you remember Thaddeus Longworth, Sarek?"

One eyebrow winged upward. "Your department chair at Harvard. Your former thesis advisor."

"Yes. He was an old friend." She looked up at her husband. So familiar. A faint line of puzzlement across his brow. And so well loved, even now. "He tried to talk me out of our marriage."

Sarek stared at her mutely.

"But he gave me this wedding present." She tore off the top sheet, handed it to him, and began to write anew, making a list. She had considered but not written this ahead of time. She had not had the courage. If she had, the sight of it, set down in black and white might have spurred her to flee in spite of her injuries and all of T'Pau's less than ceremonial guards.

Sarek looked at what she had written and then looked back at her, watching as she continued her task. "I do not understand, my wife."

Amanda swallowed hard again, glancing at the sheet of paper in her husband's hand, and then turned her pad over so that she would not have to look at the list in her own. Coward, echoed faintly in her head. "He told me I was a fool, going to live on an alien planet, among people and customs I didn't fully understand. And he wanted to be sure I always had something of an escape route. So he found out what Federation banks were on Vulcan, and he put funds for me in a coded passworded account. Just in case. I had laughed at him at the time. More fool me, I guess." She smiled a bit at her once naiveté. "And I forgot all about it, until last week."

Sarek looked down at his sheet, comprehension dawning on his brow.

"I've given you the code and password for the account he set up for me. The code is "Wedding Present". The password is Mayday. Seeing his puzzlement at the latter, she clarified. "An anglicized version of the French Mai'dez. 'Help me.'" She folded her hands in her lap tightly. "He thought I would remember that. And I did. And now I want you to go to that bank, take out those funds, and put them somewhere where I can never get at them. Then I want you to come back here, and show me proof of it. I want to see the bank records. Do you understand me? I want proof that those funds are out of my reach." She waited while he digested that, and nodded. "You see, now it is my wedding present to you. Not quite what he expected. Well. Who of us could have foreseen these circumstances?"

He stared at her without speaking.

"In retrospect, my understanding of Vulcan culture was little better than his, perhaps worse, even with all my training. But it doesn't matter. I have different motivations." She went back to her writing, finished her list and drawing a deep breath, tore the second sheet off the pad. "Enough. After you finish at the bank, I want you do to everything on this list. Every last thing, Sarek." She handed the sheet to him.

He took it from her, and she watched him. Watched him take the sheet in his hands, beautiful hands that had both delighted and terrorized her. Watched him hold her life and freedom in that sheet of paper. A life and freedom she was putting in his hands, as if it were no more than a sheet of paper.

Get over it, Amanda. What's done is done. There's no going back now. You've made your choice.

Sarek scanned the list written in his wife's delicate handwriting. His brows rose after the first few items and he raised his head to stare at her.

She met him, inexorable. "And when you come back, I want you to have proof of all of it. Or demonstrate proof of it. I need this to be…irrevocable… for me. For you. For both of us. I don't want either of us to have any ambiguity about it. I want this understanding absolute between us."

His eyes returned to the sheet of paper in his hand, stopped half way down the list and he returned to hers. "You are not giving up teaching?"

"I'm taking a sabbatical. For at least the next six months. All of this, Sarek. Irrevocably set for at least six months. We won't speak of this again for that length of time. Neither of us. And after that, for as long as you decide. I will never speak of this to you again, except at your request. It can stay this way forever. It will be up to you." She stared into his shocked eyes. "Go and do it, Sarek. And come back when it's done. And remember, I'll want proof." She turned away.

Sarek got slowly to his feet and then paused. She could feel his eyes on her. "Are you sure of this, Amanda? You understand…what this means."

"I'm sure that this may be our only chance."

"It is not what I would have wished…for you."

She looked up at him. "Do you think I don't know that, my husband?" She shook her head. "Sometimes the fates are not kind. But don't doubt me, Sarek. I will do this. We will do this. Whether we wish it or not."

Sarek looked at her, nodded once, grimly, and left.

_To be continued…_

_copyright Pat Foley 2005_


	13. Chapter 13

**Holography 2**

**By**

**Pat Foley**

**Chapter 13**

T'Pau watched the door close behind her son, and waited, her body and mind still past all hoping, for her son's return. T'Amanda had seemed resolute. But the thing was impossible, illogical, something no sane being would choose. Now she would know if a human had courage that a Vulcan did not. She looked out unseeing at the palace grounds, at the guards she had left posted still standing silent sentry, waiting, watching, for the kind of rescue raid that might have happened if this were millennia ago and Amanda were Vulcan. Wars had been fought over less than this, over the subjugation of an honored wife. She was half expecting it herself, even though she knew humans had no such honor, no conception of what was happening to one of their clan, their kin.

She heard her son's familiar footstep, and looked up, forcing herself to meet his gaze, whatever it portended. She would know now if T'Amanda had faced the husband who had abused her so, and said the words in his presence, to his face, to commit herself to the life of chattel, perhaps forever. Sarek's life, for her freedom. Even now, T'Pau could not believe or hope, that she would actually follow through with the prospect. To put herself back in the same hands that nearly had killed her, would have, without T'Pau's intervention. And to do so past anyone's intervention.

No, it was impossible. No wonder T'Pau had reverted to Pre-Reform thinking in her posting of the guard, the thing itself was pre-Reform. No logical modern Vulcan woman, no intelligent being would voluntarily agree to become the possession of a berserk Vulcan in the grip of vrie.

Sarek met her gaze, his set face no true mask for the raw pain it held, easy for a mother to see. And T'Pau's hope plummeted. Challenge, then. Or worse. The human would leave, her son's death then almost certain.

"She has chosen…chattel."

And she saw his pain was not that of rejection, but of regret for the step that must be taken. And hope returned to her, given back by a human who held her son's life in her hands, and had given hers in return.

"It is…a great honor, an honor of legend, my son. To you, and to her."

Sarek did not reply, and his eyes did not react to that, still set in unmasked pain. "I have…tasks…to perform."

"Go then. Thy chattel will be safe here, till thy return." It was an ancient formula she spoke, meant to soothe, but Sarek's shoulders tensed and he swung back to his mother.

"I will do this - as it seems I must. But do **not** refer to her so before me, Mother. I will not have it." His control nearly broke, and he turned, nearly fleeing from the room.

And T'Pau felt her own iron control, held throughout the horror of these past days, when she had faced what her son had come to, finally break in return, in relief. She put her face in her hands, and wept in abject gratitude for this chance for her beloved son's life.

xxx

As one of T'Pau's oldest attendants, T'Lean could not fail to be aware of what had come to pass. The castle bustled with the footfalls of healers and clan historians, and there had been long conferences between T'Pau, Sarek, the human and these others. She could hardly believe her good fortune, and could not help but believe fate had portended it. For though part of her shuddered with horror that the human's fate might have been hers had she married Sarek as had planned, yet she had not. And even if she had, if these events had come to pass for her, she would have chosen challenge as any logical woman would. But the human was not logical. She had, foolishly, not so chosen. And with that came the thought that her former plans were meant to be, after all. In fact, the prospect could not be better.

The human was fit for no more than chattel, at best. And chattel she was to be. No longer wife, no longer Daughter. The specter of a human bearing such titles, the family and clan inheritance that would follow and fall inevitably onto her shoulders would now cease. A chattel had no face or voice, no position in society. She was as nothing. As was fitting. That specter was now lifted. And when and if Sarek worked through the vrie, he would be free as if he were unmarried. He would have need of a true wife. For he had a position to uphold, and a chattel had no place in society. A position she could help him with. She would be wife. Of course, there was some attendant danger, with a Vulcan susceptible to vrie, but no doubt that was the human's fault. If she died, the danger would no doubt pass. And if he didn't kill the human, she would even countenance his keeping the human in her role. It was, after all, not unheard of, in ancient times for a Vulcan to have both chattel and wife. Why not now? Particularly in their clan, where passions ran high. Oh yes, she would countenance Sarek maintaining the human thus, freeing herself from such concerns. One woman for bed, and one for all else, for clan inheritance, for social position, for intellectual companionship. The idea made sudden, blinding sense to T'Lean. The human probably would die at Sarek's hand, but even if she did not, T'Lean could see now that it was preferable that Sarek keep her. If the vrie should return, or even in regular Pon Fars, he would have his chattel. And she would still serve as wife in all else that mattered. Let the human fulfill his base needs. It was what she was fit for, all she was fit for. T'Lean had no longer a pressing desire to sully herself in passion and emotion, not if it meant risking her own neck in the Time with a male so dangerous as Sarek had proven to be. But with the human filling that role, all the other honored aspects of mate could be fulfilled by her. And when and if Sarek came through the vrie, when he had regained his logic, and could think clearly, she would suggest such to him. And be heard. At last.

She was thinking on this pleasurably, when one of T'Pau's household staff came to her with a tray. "This is for the Lady T'Amanda."

T'Lean bridled at hearing that title still being used for one such as she. But the staff were not as well informed as she as to happenings. The truth would come out in the fullness of time. "Take it to her then, it is nothing to me."

"Matriarch has directed you are to attend the Lady, as is proper."

T'Lean drew a breath. It **was** proper, for T'Pau's First Attendant to serve the First Wife when she was in residence. Amanda had never been in residence before, so the duty had never fallen. But if Amanda had ever held that role, and T'Lean did not acknowledge it, that time was past. She grew heady with the thought that her own time was nigh, her long waiting come to fruition.

"Know you not that the human is to be nothing but chattel from this time forward? She is no longer wife." T'Lean considered this richly, thinking of the human someday kneeling to her, humbled, supplanted in Sarek's home by herself.

"Chattel wait on themselves," she dismissed. "Chattel wait on others. **She **will wait on **me** in the fullness of time, when she is not fulfilling her baser role in my husband-to-be's bed. No doubt a human is too clumsy to serve anywhere but there. But perhaps, with judicious beating, even a human might manage some simple tasks. We no longer treat chattel thus, since the reforms, but a human being little better than an animal, and no doubt understanding nothing less, an exception can be made…for her . That much service will I do his chattel, the back of my hand when she displeases me. Take her the tray yourself. **I **will not attend such as her."

The servant froze and T'Lean almost smiled, so great was her pleasure in finally stating such a cherished truth, anticipating the pleasure that was to come, even if it shocked. But then she noticed the woman's gaze was beyond her. She turned, to see that T'Pau had come in behind them. And the matriarch wore an expression T'Lean had never seen.

"Matriarch, I-"

T'Pau crossed the room, raised her hand and for all her age, slapped T'Lean with Vulcan strength full across the face, knocking her to the floor.

"Thee are not fit to wait on her!"

T'Lean bent before that fury, hand to her cheek, eyes swimming with unVulcan tears from the stinging shame of what was, according to ancient tradition, the most ignoble of insults from a clan leader. And delivered before a servant! "Matriarch-"

T'Pau looked down on T'Lean, hand still raised, fingers curling as if itching to strike again. "Thee have been in my service many years, T'Lean, so I will give thee one chance more. Thee will beg my pardon for the insult to my Daughter. And if I ever find that thee addresses or refers to her with anything but the respect due to her as such, thee can not only find another's service, thee will live clanless."

T'Lean spoke through her lip that was now swelling, through the blood filling her mouth from where she had cut the inside of her cheek on her own teeth. "I beg forgiveness, Matriarch."

"And T'Lean." T'Pau waited until the woman raised fearful eyes to hers. "My son would never take such as thee even to chattel, much less wife."

T'Pau turned her back on T'Lean, and took the tray. "I will wait on her." She gave the cringing T'Lean a look of disgust. "And consider myself honored to do so."

And T'Lean put her hand to the spreading green flush on her cheek, which would bloom into a telling handprint, the mark of disfavor, and considered the loss of all her hopes.

xxx

Three hours later, Sarek returned to the palace, his errands and preparations completed. He had regained some control. Indeed, oddly enough, the preparations had soothed that part of him that strove to rage past his flawed control. Only his sadness had increased, but that he controlled as well. What must be, must be accepted. He paused at the door of their suite, drew a deep breath, remarshalling his control and entered.

She was laying back, an arm thrown over her eyes. Sleeping perhaps, or lost in thought. He approached her, studying her body as if he had never seen her. Nor had he ever seen her thus, as chattel. His.

It was…oddly…calming. "Amanda?"

She stirred, lowering the arm. She had not been crying, her face was dry, but he could see she was tense. "Yes?"

"It is done. I have brought the proof you requested."

She sat up, then, and he crossed to the bed, sitting beside her, handing her a paper listing the closing of the "wedding present" account, password Mayday, and the transfer of funds to Sarek's personal accounts. The removal of Amanda's name from their financial records. The striking of her voice prints, retina scans, and finger print codes from her aircar controls, from the security consoles, from the communications consoles, from the subspace networks, from the media links, all the rights, privileges and accesses to society. As if she had never existed. She existed only for him now. Part of him was distressed, and yet more and more, he found himself embracing that thought, warming to it. And Amanda sat next to him, his sleeve to her bare arm, thigh to thigh, so close he could feel the warmth of her body, and looked it all over as clinically as if he were not ransoming her freedom to his life. Till she came to one line.

"Except for the messages from Spock." Amanda said, stopping on that point.

"I set it up so that those messages are diverted into a separate account," Sarek said, his mouth tensing in a way that spoke volumes about his feelings regarding that. But that had been a deal-breaker for her. And she had agreed to give him so much, so easily, he could not refuse. However he might have wished to. "You may receive and send those messages once a week."

Amanda nodded. "What did you tell the academy?"

"What you specified. That you had a special research project and you needed absolute privacy for it, and required an immediate sabbatical."

She looked at him. "Did they question that?"

Sarek met her eyes. "They did not dare. And it would not matter if they did. This is Vulcan, not Earth. And you are my wife."

Amanda nodded, trying to ignore the deep chill that was stealing through her. "Okay. I guess that's it."

Even now, some part of him drew back, drew up, amazed that she should be so accepting. "Amanda. I have done this, but-"

"But what?" She looked up at him, as if he had some answer. And he did not. "You've talked to the healers, to your mother. You know yourself better than anyone. You know what the last few weeks have been like. What you've done. You tell me, Sarek. Do we have a better choice? Is there any other alternative?" She was demanding, but there was a trace of plea in her own voice.

Save me from this. If you can.

Help me

Mai'dez

And he could not. Would not. He had, deliberately, even if at her request, taken her Mayday away from her. Sarek lowered his head, unable to formulate any reply. Unable to think of any other solution. He had thought, even as he had done it, that he should have turned his mind to some other solution, some more reasonable option. Even as he had taken possession of what her colleague had meant to be hers…

How **dare** that human!

To save her in some case such as this. Well, it was his now. As she was his.

His mind was clouded with desire, with emotion, with a trace of rage, ever ready to spring up, barely suppressed and barely leashed. He would have willingly fought for her, would kill for her.

Indeed, he was not well.

And it came to him that however resistant he had initially been, now he wanted her thus.

She was watching him, as if she could see the progression of his thoughts. And something died, resigned, within her. "I didn't think so."

For a moment longer, he was quiet. Then he stirred. "Are you ready?"

She closed her eyes, and nodded, tears falling from her lashes. So it begins. This time she didn't bother to wipe them away. Perhaps it was ignoble of her to cry, but her nobility only went so far. "Yes." She started to rise, and stopped, taking a deep breath. Vulcan nursing only went so far, and they had little concept of painkillers. And she had had none. Had not wanted anything that might cloud her head, her judgment at such a critical time. Everything still hurt…too much. And her head went light with it for a moment, swimming. She clutched at Sarek's arms, fighting to stay conscious.

He drew his arms around her and she rested there a minute, until her vision cleared. "I think you are not well enough to be moved, Amanda."

"If I don't do this now, Sarek, I never will," she said, her voice tense. "There is a limit to my courage. Just take me. Please."

He picked her up. She put her arms tight around his neck, laid her head on his shoulder, and melting against him, sighed deeply. Like this, held in his arms, it was so hard to believe what was happening.

He looked down at her. "T'Pau will wish to take her leave."

She nodded.

T'Pau was in fact waiting in the entrance hall of the palace.

"Fare thee well, honored daughter."

Amanda nodded. "Thank you, mother."

Sarek carried her to the aircar. Amanda stared listlessly out while he started the engines and put the car in flight. She was finding it hard to believe she might never see any of this again. Part of her was urging herself to run while she could.

I can't.

Part of her was so deep in denial it hurt. And part of her was full of a fatalistic, careless bravado. She would not be knocked down. And none of that, none of it, would help her in the role she had agreed to assume. There had to be something she could do to help herself recognize that.

They were circling over the city near the Terran Enclave when Amanda said. "I forgot something."

"My wife?"

"Stop in the Enclave. There's something I want to get."

Puzzled, Sarek swung the car across the ancient part of the city to the mixture of dwellings, embassies, and shops that was populated by the offworld residents of Vulcan. Amanda wiped her tears from her cheeks. "I'll need some money."

"Amanda-"

"I know I just told you to take me off all the financial accounts, but I'm not having second thoughts. I'm human and I just forgot something. Something I need. We need. It's important."

"Tell me what it is, and I will get it for you."

"No. I have to do this myself."

"Amanda, you are not well enough."

"True, so stop arguing with me. Just let me do it."

Sarek hesitated, eyeing his wife. It made no sense, after she had him make all those preparations, to change her mind now, but she was human, and facing daunting prospects. Could all this have been a ruse and someone was waiting here, to whisk her away… They'd never succeed in getting her off planet, but still…

"Sarek, please. I only want a few Federation credits, and I'll be back in five minutes. You can watch me."

It was the plea that did it. She had always asked him for so little, that what she asked for, he would move mountains to give. Even in vrie. Sarek handed them over. Amanda wiped her face again, and pulled her hair back, searching through the storage compartments until he realized what she was looking for and joined the search. They found a stray clasp to fasten it with, she straightened her hair, her dress and peered at her face suspiciously in one of the reflective panels. "How do I look? I don't look like I've been crying, do I?"

"No," Sarek lied. With no flicker of conscience.

She nodded, took the credits and walked to a nearby shop. Sarek watched as she disappeared into it, feeling uneasy. But she hadn't taken enough money to even buy lunch at a Terran restaurant. He held himself together by main force, counting the minutes down until he would go after her. But in a moment, she was back, a small package in her hand. She climbed into the aircar and put the remaining credits on the dashboard. "Let's go home now, my husband."

He took the money back and started the car anew.

He flew through the security screens surrounding the house, each one dropping obediently to his coded signal and raising up immediately afterwards. He was a Federation ambassador, and even on his home planet, he took necessary precautions. But the forcefields had now been changed to prevent egress, as well as ingress, at least egress from one human life form. He flew the aircar into the hanger, and turned off the engine. Amanda picked up her package, and then lightly, as if testing, ran her fingers over the control panel. There was no ignition response from the car's computer. Sarek watched her, seeing a trace of emotion flicker across her face, but she just nodded. They walked through to the house and then Amanda paused, hesitated, then walked through the garden and put her hand on the gate. It did not open. She stood there a moment, frozen in tableau, her hand on the gate and then Sarek said softly. "Come, my wife."

She nodded and followed her husband into their home.

The house looked the same as always, but it wouldn't be, for her. "Do you want me to test the computers?"

Sarek flicked a brow in concurrence.

Amanda went unflinchingly to them and touched her fingers to them, tried her voice commands. The screens resolutely stayed dark. She tried the vid phones, the comm links, the newsnets, all the data and media links. Nothing rose to her presence, by fingers, retina scans, palm prints or voice prints. She looked at Sarek. "How do I get Spock's messages?"

Sarek's visage darkened briefly, but he controlled it. "Once a week, here, this one will activate and display them, and allow a reply to be sent.

Amanda trailed her fingers across the console, a brief caress. "Let's go upstairs," she said

In the bedroom, Amanda set her package down, took a deep breath, and then went with ruthless attention through her wardrobe. Every Terran garment went into the recycler. She put aside everything but the house shifts, those short, sleeveless garments suitable for wearing in the sole company of one's husband. She stepped aside from the pile of clothes, added shoes to the pile and gestured for Sarek. "All right. Put those somewhere where I don't have access."

Sarek gathered the items and walked out of the room.

Amanda thought it was just as well she was so tired that she felt numb about all this. She stripped out of the dress she was wearing, changed into a house shift, and threw the dress away, sending it into the recycler to be reduced to its essential atoms. She would never want to wear it again anyway. She was not superstitious, but she felt surely a dress worn on such a day as this could only be bad luck. She unbound her hair, tossed the fastener on her dressing table, and let it lie loose past her waist. When Sarek came back, she was opening the wrappings of the package.

"What did you purchase?" Sarek asked, curious in spite of himself.

It was a frame, a plain, unadorned frame of a neutral color. "What is that for?" Sarek asked.

"Do you have the notes I made?"

Sarek reached into his tunic and handed her two sheets of paper. She slipped the sheets of paper into the frame, and closed it.

"Why are you framing that?"

"As a reminder, for me. And a promise to you. It is… something tangible." She put the frame on her bedside table. She felt him looking at her and turned her gaze up to his.

She was so pale he felt washed, consumed in concern. "Come to me, my wife."

She thought, as she went to his side, that she liked the sound of that better.

_To be continued…_

_copyright Pat Foley 2005_


	14. Chapter 14

**Holography 2**

**By**

**Pat Foley**

**Chapter 14**

Well aware his wife was barely recovered from his last violent attentions, Sarek merely held her. Amanda was depleted enough that she went right to sleep, waking the next morning, having spent the night in his arms. With that behind her, the first night they had spent together since Spock's departure without a repeat of the punishing attentions he'd been visiting on her since then, facing her first day in her new circumstances didn't seem …quite… so daunting.

At least she had a goodly share of hope balancing her fear.

She brushed the tangles out of her hair from the night before, and absently braided and tied it as she had done a thousand times before. But before she could rise from her dressing table, Sarek moved behind her, his hands on her shoulders. She met his eyes in the mirror. His hands weren't bruising, but his grip was strong enough that she wasn't going anywhere.

"You have made an error, my wife."

She turned her face up to his, but Sarek had moved his hands to her hair. Without comment he undid the tie that bound it, and ran both hands through the long strands, freeing them from the casual plait she had put in.

Amanda froze, her breath caught in her throat. Then striving for normalcy she said. "I apologize. I forgot."

Sarek flicked an eyebrow in concession. "Understandable. Naturally you will have difficulty unlearning old habits and replacing them with new ones. That is why I brought it to your attention."

"Yes. Thank you." she said faintly, and escaped into the bathroom, needing a moment of privacy to regain her composure. When she finally came out, Sarek had already gone down to breakfast. She was walking out the door herself when she stopped.

After years of long hair, she had a hundred different ties, barrettes, fasteners and scrunchies to keep her unruly hair in some state of order. They were – had been – a necessity of her life. A wife did not leave her hair unbound except in private quarters, and the sole company of her husband or pre Kahs Wan children. Since Spock had grown, she'd never stepped out of their suite without her hair pulled back or up, or braided with some fastener. Sarek was right, she had ceased thinking about it. Reaching for one to do so had become automatic over the years. She kept most in a box on her dressing table, and some pinned to a ribbon that hung down from her mirror. Both the box and the ribbon were now gone, and when she opened the drawers, there was not a single stray hair tie over looked.

She closed her eyes, her heart in her throat. Shocked.

It was no more than she had chosen. She couldn't blame Sarek for doing what she herself had asked him to do with other things. She'd handed him clothes, shoes, all the things that were incompatible with her present existence.

Why be uneasy that he followed through on something she'd forgotten? It was just a little thing.

"Beshrew the somber pencil," she quoted, warning herself softly. "The Bastille is just a tower. And a tower is just a house you can't get out of. Call it simply a confinement and suppose 't is some tyrant of a distemper, and not a man, which holds you in it. The evil vanishes."

"It is just a distemper," she whispered. Willing herself to accept it. Believe it.

But the unlearning, and learning to vanish that apparent evil, would take time too.

Well, time was what she had now. It was about all she had.

But at the back of her mind - call it distemper or man, house or tower, the starling was still a prisoner. As was she.

xxx

Sarek looked up as his wife came into the kitchen. It took him a moment to subdue his instinctive reaction to her presence. And her appearance.

"Should you not be resting, my wife?"

Amanda shrugged, leaning against a counter. "I have all day for that. Shall I make you some breakfast first?"

Sarek eyed her. She had lost weight in the past weeks, he could see the pulse beat in her temple. "I will make you breakfast my wife. And you will eat it."

It was telling of how unwell she really was that she didn't argue. He had never any talents in the kitchen and never had any interest in acquiring such skills as were necessary even for dealing with the simplest kitchen tasks. Before he had married he had servants do such for him, having lived all his life in one household or another where servants were always available. After he had married he discovered how much he disliked strangers interfering in his now much more private life. Amanda had disliked it too, feeling self-conscious and superfluous among the Vulcan help, who had been there long before she, who had a proprietary attitude toward their duties, and regarded her very much as an outsider. After some discussion between them, Amanda had taken over kitchen chores and the maintaining of their personal suite.

Sarek had been somewhat resistant at first to the idea of her being bothered with such tasks. She had assured him she realized he had not married her to turn her into a scullery maid. He had taken that to mean some sort of lower servant. And she seemed to mind the prospect of such chores less than dealing with the servants involved in the previous arrangements. And he had been grateful for the privacy as well, discovering he liked no one privy to or interfering in his home and marriage.

He'd also discovered an added benefit one day when he'd arrived home early, to hear Amanda singing the score from Cinderella as she swept sehlat hairs from the stone floors – he hadn't bothered to try and understand the words, something about a chair in a corner. The words were immaterial, just her voice in song had filled him with wonder - and desire to possess so strong and encompassing he had not believed possible for a modern Vulcan. But then, he had never heard anything so beautiful. And the wonder of it, he had told himself, listening in amazement, was she was already his. That he had married her without even being aware of this astounding ability. He had stood in the entrance hall, listening entranced, for uncounted minutes, not bothering to translate the words, just enjoying the loveliness of her voice as it sailed through one melody after another, the ancient stone walls magnifying it with perfect acoustics. I'Chiya had finally broken the spell, sensing his master's presence and had come woofing out. And then Amanda had broken off to chase the sehlat, drawing up short at the sight of her husband.

"Did you …hear me?"

"Indeed, my wife." He looked at her as if he had never seen her before.

And she flushed, in unaccountable embarrassment. "It **is** the only appropriate score to be sung when cleaning a castle," she had told him, her cheeks pink with emotion as well as her exertions, "though perhaps 'Whistle while you work' is a close second. But I'm not very good at the whistling part."

He had not understood that reference either. Nor had he much cared. He had simply decided she could clean the whole fortress from parapets to dungeons if she would sing while she did it.

"I thought it …very beautiful…my wife. I had no idea you possessed such talent."

She regarded him archly, with a trace of a smile. "I have **many** talents, my husband. And if you have a little…free time… I could put down my broom and show you some of them."

He had taken her to bed, but it had been a hard choice – at least at that particular moment, for he almost regretted that she had to …put down her broom, so to speak, if it meant her ceasing her song. But he had said nothing about that, embarrassed as well, nor did he alter the arrangements he had made. He had, after all, not married her to be a… scullery maid. And she still sang when she cleaned, seemed unable to do such chores without song, and he still surreptitiously listened, awash in pleasure. And occasionally wondered if his wife would really mind becoming a scullery maid. Did all sing? He had never remembered the cleaning staff at any time on ever Terra doing so. He thought at times to ask her and never quite found the courage, suspecting it a foolish question. He was not always sure when she was teasing him. And after all, none would sing as she did, or be so completely his.

The staff now arrived after Amanda usually left for the Academy and took care of the rest of the house. He realized he would have to make some new arrangement regarding that.

But he didn't deny that as to breakfast, he felt more than a little unequal to his intentions. Amanda, who a month ago would have watched in delicious amusement as he fumbled through trying to prepare her a meal, neither smiled nor seemed interested in his unease. She slid down into a chair and rested her head on one hand as though it were too heavy to hold up.

Faced with his own lack of competence, Sarek puzzled what to give her, and remember, with a burst of relief, that what he had last seen her eating would no doubt be acceptable.

Amanda opened her eyes, looking down and wondered what inspired Sarek to put before her the same meal she'd had before he'd raped her. But she realized he wouldn't understand how she would feel about that. She tried a few spoonfuls, but she couldn't seem to make herself swallow, and after that pushed the bowl away.

"Amanda, you must eat."

"I'm fine. Or will be, in a few days according to Mark."

Sarek stilled at her mention of her physician's given name. His whole body had tensed in response to it, a flood of emotions, anger predominant, filling him. Startling him with the strength of them. He looked at her a moment, struggling for control of his temper, and realizing anew that however temporarily injured and fatigued his wife was, his problem was much more serious.

He had known the physician for years. As long as Amanda had known him, and a little before. The man had been attached to the Terran Embassy before Amanda had come to Vulcan, was a competent human physician, or he would not have employed him in her care. And he was also, by Amanda's standards, a friend. She would say a friend to both of them. Sarek had political dealing with the Terran legations on Vulcan, and attached to the Terran Embassy, Mark attended the same gatherings, shared some of that same professional and social circle.

But he was also a man, and worse, a human, a species who had no bonded attachments of any true depth, and even in marriage, continued to notice and admire other women. Even other married, bonded women. There were ties of friendship between Mark and his wife. And regard on his side. By human standards, his behavior was not improper, it was even considered some sort of compliment, Sarek had discovered in astonishment and profound distaste, for a husband to be told appreciative comments on his wife by other men. Mark thought his wife beautiful, accomplished and lovely in every way. He had told him so, once, and further, he did not need to say it, it was apparent in his manner when he dealt with her. And yet, if called on it, the physician would have protested in honest horror that he had no untoward attentions to Amanda, and Amanda would say did not love Mark, except as a friend.

Sarek had never found much compensation in the honorable nature of human friendship. He had always tried to be polite and tolerant of the human friends in his wife's life, in spite of the fact that many of her old friends had tried seriously to dissuade her from marrying him. He had found that astonishing. Such things on Vulcan were between the parties involved, not the purview of idle acquaintances.

But even those friends she had acquired on Vulcan sometimes regarded him askance. Simple residence on Vulcan did not guarantee human acceptance of Vulcan ways. His wife appeared unusual in those abilities. He himself had tried to respect the claims these myriad others made on his wife's attention, but he had never particularly cared for the necessity. He supposed that showed at times in his manner. He was aware that trying and succeeding were separate things. He had never acknowledged, nor could he, that others had any true claim to her.

But those circumstances had…of necessity…passed. And it was a great relief to consider that. At least to him. Perhaps to her as well.

"Amanda."

She looked up a trifle apprehensively, sensing something from his changed manner, his darkened tone.

Sarek struggled to keep his voice calm, but his rigid control bespoke of the battle against his temper that he was fighting. "You will not in future speak to me of any others in your life. You will not think of any others….ever again. None exist for you. There are now, and in the future will be, no others in your life."

She had stilled. Sarek waited a moment, two, three for her reaction. When she did not acknowledge him, he prodded her. "Do you understand, my wife?"

"Yes, my husband."

He nodded, trying to take solace that from the subdued nature of that response, she **did** understand, human though she was. He tried to discipline his own racing heart, master the impulses that wanted to rage through him. It took him some moments of his own, but then he breathed out, a relieved sigh, feeling some success.

He looked over at his wife.

She had not moved, apparently engaged in the same self discipline as he had just been through. He watched her a moment, appreciating that as a human she had less control over her emotions and reactions. And though she was not fighting a physical syndrome such as his own, her emotions were perhaps as much of a handicap. This was more difficult for her than a Vulcan woman, and the only Vulcan woman who had ever done it willingly was revered as a shining example in the history of his people. Their people.

He shook himself lightly, realizing he was getting lost in contemplating her. "I must go."

She looked up at him, and he saw a faint protest in her eyes before she subdued it. That didn't displease him. He walked over to her and drew her hair from where she had pushed it behind her ears, disliking even that much confinement, smoothing the long curling strands over her shoulders.

"Unbound is unbound, my wife. You will please remember to always leave it thus."

She lowered her eyes. "Yes, my husband."

He looked down at her. If I were human I would tell her that I loved her. How I would like to. But there is no point in expressing a statement we both know is a lie. If I loved her, truly loved her, I could not bring myself to do this heinous thing to her. But I am Vulcan, and do not love her. For I can do this to her. I must. And I will. He dropped his hand and turned away, not trusting himself to speak.

"I'll miss you."

Sarek stopped, a pain so physical wrenching through him he might have fallen. Don't love me so much, don't feel so for me, even as I tear you physically from every other tie. I cannot bear it. He straightened his shoulders and walked out of the room without looking back.

Amanda flinched as the door closed behind her husband's broad back. The silence around seemed to expand and echo, and she lowered her head to her hands, torn between two realities. And the unreality of what she was feeling. This was, after all, her home of twenty years, familiar and known. She'd chased her toddler son down these halls, swept sehlat hairs up from the floors, prepared and put thousands of meals on the table and cleaned up after them. Whatever the present reality, and despite the evidence of her senses, it was hard to consider that it was now also her prison. Or to believe Sarek some sort of controlling ogre. That wasn't him. It wasn't them. He was a sane, sensible man. Yes, he had a temper but he also was kind, gentle, with sense of humor, and a strong sense of right and wrong. Aside from some Vulcan quirks, and a particular blind spot relating to his son, they'd had twenty years in an intimate, largely equal and enduring marriage. She was a 23rd century woman, a scientist, educator. She wasn't some silly fool who'd enjoy having someone order her around; she had a career, a life outside of her marriage, a genius level intelligence. Her husband had the same. They weren't these people they'd become. A sane, sober, part of her mind kept saying, "Oh, this is ridiculous. I'm going to wake up now."

She sighed. Except she wasn't waking up. Sarek was not entirely sane right now. And she'd deliberately put herself in a position of inequality, one from which intelligence wasn't going to extricate her.

I can't get out.

She threw the remainder of the cereal in the recycler and walked out the door. The birds were singing in the garden, she could hear water bubbling and splashing in one of the many fountains. She might be home merely to work on a paper, or get a research project done, as the Academy had been told. Everything business as usual. She leaned against the stone wall of the house behind her, the gritty warmth of the crumbling sandstone digging into her bare shoulders, underscoring its solidity. She stared across the courtyard, eying the far gate, locked against her. It was tempting to try it, as a child would test a loose tooth. But she was feeling too fragile right now to be slapped with the evidence of what her emotions were still struggling to comprehend. She knew what she had done. She just couldn't find herself accepting it. No matter what she had done, she wasn't really ready. Her courage had brought her through the initial actions, but action was easy. Now that the impetus requiring action was over, and the time for acceptance was here, the reality was unreal. And unsettling.

I cannot get out.

And her mind balked at it. Refused the entire notion. Not her. She wasn't the victim type.

Chattel. She tasted the word in her mind, not daring to consider it before. There was something…awful…about it. And something so…not her.

What's in a name? That which we call a rose - or a wife - by any other name… She shook herself. This was not Shakespeare.

Well, she had time, after all. To get used to it. To find acceptance. She had nothing but time now. Nothing. And no one, too.

No others exist for you.

Her mind tried to comprehend it, and shuddered. She shook her head, and didn't try to force it.

She had a career.

And had definitely was the operative word.

It was too much to take in. Too soon. But she had time. And a husband determined to teach her. She thought of that, of his strong hands on her, and hastily combed her fingers through her hair, bringing it back from where she had once again pushed it reflexively behind her ears, her heart suddenly pounding as she realized what she had done unawares. She was glad Sarek wasn't here to see it.

Oh, yes. Eventually the reality **would** sink in.

She went back inside.

_To be continued…_

_copyright Pat Foley 2005_


	15. Chapter 15

**Holography 2**

**By**

**Pat Foley**

**Chapter 15**

Sarek let himself into the house, puzzled at the quiet darkness that shrouded it. His wife was usually home by now, usually downstairs in the kitchen, simultaneously preparing a meal and reviewing her day's work.

He shook himself lightly. That was past. Of course his wife was home. But where was she?

He wound his way through the darkened house, not bothering with illumination, his eyes, bred to Vulcan's moonless nights not requiring them. Reaching their suite, he pushed the door open. These rooms were darkened too, even Amanda's study. His heart in his throat, wondering if she had fled and how, wondering what loophole he had left in his security preparations, he went into the bedroom.

And breathed a sigh of relief. Of course she was here.

He walked over to the bed, looking down at his sleeping wife. She looked…he searched for the English word… awful. Her skin was a patchwork of fading purple to yellow bruises from throat to thighs, red marks on her ribs and wrist showed where she'd had bones laser fused, and she was visibly thinner. His work. And then there were the injuries that could not be seen, internal. Nearly life threatening. He forced himself to consider what his mind had been shying away from. He had …nearly…killed her.

Because she had challenged him. Not with a champion. Just challenged him herself. He surveyed her, wondering what kind of a monster he was, that, hereditary condition or no, he would find the opposition of so small a woman worthy of such a violent reaction.

She is not small in her heart, he thought, but it was no compensation.

He sat down next to her, and Amanda stirred and turned from her side to her back, blinking at him in the starlit room.

"Hi."

He almost, not quite, smiled. "Good evening, my wife."

"How are you feeling?"

"I should be asking that of you," he said.

"I slept all day."

"No doubt you required the rest."

She said nothing, studying him. He reached out a hand, an absent caress. And her body tensed, visibly and her breath caught. For a moment, he held still, stunned. She frowned, seeming as puzzled herself. An instinctive reaction, then. Well, he could not blame her body for remembering an abuse that her mind preferred not to consider. He had, after all, nearly killed her not so very long ago. But after twenty years of patiently instilling the responses in her that should keep her safe through myriad Pon Fars it was a sharp shock to realize how one admittedly violent act could counteract and outweigh all the remainder. He felt the unreasoning possessive burn of rejection rise in him, a resentment of the humanity in her that thus betrayed him, a desire to retaliate in kind. He went into himself, fighting for control. His wife was in no condition to tolerate his attentions at the moment.

"Sarek? I'm sorry."

He rose from his thoughts to regard her. "Have you done anything to apologize for, my wife?"

"Obviously you think so. I think so too. I can't help thinking that if I were a Vulcan wife, we might not be in this situation."

He said nothing and she sighed, shifting to sit up, not without some difficulty. He reached out instinctively to assist. This time she was ready for it, and she did not flinch. He tried to tell himself it was not the same thing, but part of him felt eased by her quiet submission to his hands on her.

She took his hands in hers. The same hands he had used against her. "I am sorry," she repeated. "For what I did that upset you just now, and what I did this morning. And for the past few weeks." She shook her head. "Maybe it doesn't help, and maybe you don't understand. But I do love you. I never meant to hurt you."

He looked down at her. Part of him understood that the correct human response would be to take responsibility for his own regrettable actions. At the very least for the injuries he caused. But he was still struggling with the resentment and rejection. "It doesn't matter," he said finally, aware she was waiting for him to say something. "There is no occasion for it to occur again." There was a relief in that absolute conviction.

She eyed him, studying his manner. "I suppose that's true."

"You suppose?" Sarek latched onto the uncertainty in her tone. "You do understand your changed status."

She looked down at the tension in his hands, and nodded. "Yes."

He put her hands from his. It was easier to deal with the feelings surging through him now that he understood their cause. But that did not mean it was easy. He began to regret bringing Amanda home before she was fully recovered. "You should rest, my wife. You are still not well." He rose.

"Where are you going?" She asked.

"To meditate." He left the room so abruptly, he could almost be said to have fled. Amanda sighed, looking after him.

"Neither are you, my husband. Neither are you."

xxx

She spent the first week sleeping, a gentle slide from one life to another. She'd been tired and stressed before the …rape, and her injuries afterward had not been minor, she needed the rest. She'd go downstairs with Sarek in the morning, they'd eat breakfast together, and then she'd go back to bed. She'd sleep the day away, until Sarek came home in the evening. Then they'd share another meal and she'd go to bed again. When he came in later, he did no more than hold her. She wasn't up to more, she'd been patched back together, but she was by no means healed. In sharp contrast to his possessive attentions before, Sarek seemed…almost…calm now. The combination of the confinement, her depleted condition and his awareness of his own had put a check on his aggression. She had woken several times to find him standing over her, an unreadable look on his face. But he was not angry. At present it was impossible to say if or how long or if his mood would hold, but Amanda wasn't looking ahead. She concentrated on getting through one day at a time. And sleeping helped, not only was she regaining her strength, but it allowed her to put off too painful considerations.

But eventually the day came when she felt … rested and if not well enough to run a marathon, not interested in more sleep. After she had watched Sarek leave for his day, she was faced with the problem of her own. She hadn't really considered what she was to do. And her options were very limited.

But technically, she was supposed to be working on a research project. That was the ostensible reason, given to the world, for her sudden disappearance. Research was a bit out of the question, given her circumstances, but she had several articles she'd been putting off writing, due to lack of time. That was no longer an issue. While she had to write the articles out in longhand, and without access to reference materials, the absolute quiet and freedom from interruptions almost more than balanced these inconveniences. In fact it was downright inspiring, and she sketched out some new theories she felt were extremely promising. She wrote the articles one after the other, and when she finished, she went back to the first, rewrote and polished until she got to the last again.

And then she pondered what to do with them.

Sarek had seen her writing, scribbling in longhand, and had said nothing. It didn't seem to bother him, but he had not asked her either. Not that he would, even before. He did not really understand her field of study, no more than she understood astrophysics or computers, beyond the basics.

She had marked the references that needed checking, but she couldn't do that herself. There were services available that would do that for a fee, but they couldn't work on their own, they worked with an author and she couldn't communicate with them, or review the drafts with them. The same held true for the inevitable submission process to academic journals and the peer reviews that would follow. Some co-author could be found to do that for her, she had some promising research assistants, but she couldn't even suggest such to Sarek because she had been told …warned…that she wasn't supposed to be thinking of others. In the end, she left the articles on his desk. Let him figure out what, if anything to do with them. They were his customs and restrictions, if there was a solution, he'd think of it. And if there was none, well, the articles had served their purpose in keeping her busy in writing them. Cut off as she was at the moment, it could hardly make much difference to her what happened after that. She'd never see them or know about them.

And Sarek …said nothing. She didn't know if that were good or bad, or perhaps it seemed both to her. Good in that her writing them didn't seem to shatter his tentative control, bad in that he obviously wasn't interested in helping her keep up the fiction of working on a research project that had been the ostensible excuse for her confinement. If this was to be a short term, six months deal, she'd need something to show when it was over. And if it wasn't, then it didn't matter.

Based on Sarek's behavior, it didn't matter.

She tried not to let herself think about that. She certainly hadn't expected, based on T'Pau's distress, that Sarek was going to magically get well in a few weeks. Instead she concentrated on other diversions to occupy the long hours when Sarek was not home.

One was getting used to the house as it was now for her. It was definitely an odd, uncomfortable feeling. Sarek had made preparations for her return. But the fortress was a combination of ancient and modern, and as such, wasn't entirely adaptable to the situation. For example, modern doors could be programmed not to open to her presence, but ancient ones could not, and some areas were simply separated by stone archways, that had no doors at all. Those areas he no longer wanted her in were programmed against her if they were modern, and if they were not, he removed or deactivated whatever was forbidden. For example, there had been communications throughout the house, which Sarek had deactivated. Apparently not only was it unacceptable for her to make or take calls, he didn't even want her around when he did. The only working communications unit left functional was in Sarek's office. And that he kept locked.

If someone came to the house, Sarek ordered her upstairs to their suite. He not only didn't want her to see or to be seen, but she wasn't even to overhear him with others.

Likewise when the cleaning teams came, and the same for the gardeners, and all the other house staff. She certainly had no desire to see anyone or be seen in her current state, but it was unsettling. As if she had some contagious disease. Or had committed some deadly crime.

Locked up for life. For …what was her crime exactly? In spite of her conversations with T'Pau, she hadn't quite figured that out.

In spite of his precautions, she did overhear him sometimes in his office. If he was angry enough to raise his voice, even a little, she could hear him in the kitchen. And she heard him more than a few times. His control, that had held for a few weeks, was unraveling. And it came to her with a sudden sharp shock what was the only thing that would make him angry. Vulcans were savvy enough to read between the lines and not ask questions about personal matters. But humans were not. There were people calling for her. Asking after her. And unlike Vulcans, they were not all buying the research project story.

And that was not improving Sarek's temper.

One day he went to take a priority call and she heard him arguing with someone, not the words, just the tone of his voice. When he came out, he was furious. And seeing her, his visage darkened further. "Go upstairs," he told her curtly. And then he didn't even wait for her to reply, or comply, but actually gave her a push. "Now!"

She went, but as she was climbing the stairs she saw through the windows a UFP emblazoned cruiser fly through the forcefields and land on the hanger sands, followed by two craft with their clan markings and that of the palace guard. The occupants disembarked, and Amanda watched, knowing she shouldn't be there and yet unable to make her feet move. Sarek went to meet them on the hanger sands, outside the fortress gates. And there they argued, the humans sweating in their Federation uniforms, the Vulcans impassive but …nervous – she could tell a nervous Vulcan and the councilors who had come to back up Sarek were clearly nervous. And behind them all, the hulking presence of the guard, who stationed themselves in front of the gate, hands on hips, where also resided their fully functional phasers.

She bit a knuckle, and muttered a curse under her breath.

And nothing happened. The UFP officials requested, then argued, then threatened, if she could tell anything from body language. But Sarek did not budge and eventually they turned aside, and got back in their vehicle.

Amanda ran up the stairs to her suite, and closed the door behind her, her breath coming short. That was apparently one thing T'Pau and Sarek hadn't counted on. That wives just didn't drop off the face of the planet in Terran culture. Someone was asking after her, and not taking the fictional story they'd been given as an answer.

She sank down in the nearest chair and wrapped her arms around her knees, feeling vulnerable. None of this was helping her, and none of it could do any good, surely they realized that. She was a Vulcan citizen, had become one when she married Sarek. He had made sure of that. And Vulcan law superceded Federation law, where the two came into conflict. Surely Federation officials understood the terms of their own treaty with Vulcan. There was nothing they could do and they must know it. Why was anyone bothering after her? Why didn't they just let her go? She was nothing to them, had long been, so far as she could tell, a thorn in the side to the Human diplomats on Vulcan, who found her unsympathetic to their political agendas.

She heard Sarek coming up the stairs and she froze, wondering what would happen next. He opened the door and she looked up at him. For a moment they just stared at each other. She didn't make any effort to mask her unease, her hands were clenched so tightly around her knees her knuckles were white. And she could see he was furious. His fists were clenched. She'd never seen that before.

"You will stay here for the rest of the day."

She nodded, head down.

Sarek walked over and placed a hand on her head, down her shining hair, pushing it aside to rest on the nape of her neck, curling around her collarbone, fingers warm against her throat.

"Yes means yes, Amanda."

"Yes, my husband," she whispered, hardly daring that.

He let go of her. But she waited for him to close the door behind him before she dared breathe.

But she could not stay huddled in their suite forever. A few days passed and the calls that were so annoying Sarek slowed and then, apparently stopped. She began to feel braver. Sarek had not entirely recovered his temper, and the incident had left its mark on him. Sometimes the way he looked at her made her uneasy. But he hadn't repeated his tacit threat, and she had begun to gloss over it in her mind, make excuses for it, rewrite the incident.

She looked for diversion and her gardens proved one. She had never had much leisure to get involved in them before, but now she did. She waited until the gardeners were done for the day, and indulged herself in getting good and dirty. She had been sitting around for too long, it felt wonderful to do some real physical work. It helped her purge some of her unease. She enjoyed herself more than she had thought she would, able to put the disturbing thoughts about her situation completely out of her mind for the afternoon, and then went to take a shower – sonic, for her hair would never dry before Sarek came home, and prepare dinner. A dinner for which she finally had some appetite.

She prepared a good one, with fresh vegetables she'd gathered herself, and was addressing herself delicately to it when she felt her husband's eyes on her.

"Amanda. You are sunburned."

"I spent some time today working in the gardens." She looked at Sarek. "Don't worry, no one saw me. I waited till the gardeners were gone." She looked down at her bare arms. "I suppose I did get a little too much sun. It was so late in the afternoon; I didn't even think about it. You'd think by now I'd be immune or something."

Sarek took another bite, chewed and swallowed before replying. "I created the gardens for your pleasure. Not for you to labor in like a field hand. It is neither your role nor your responsibility to work in them. You are to remember that in future."

She gave him a quick glance, and frowned slightly. "It's true that I've never had much time to work in them before, but that's not an issue now. And I enjoy it."

Sarek regarded her askance, as if her reply could not have been more non-sequitor. "Indeed. Amanda, I was speaking in Vulcanur. But you have long proved mastery of at least of the language of my world, if not its philosophies. So I fail to understand what part of 'not your role or responsibility' you failed to comprehend."

Amanda colored to the roots of her hair, deeper than any sunburn, before quickly dropping her gaze. "None, my husband."

"Then I trust we will not need to have this conversation again." He tipped her chin up, frowning at her flushed face. "When you have recovered from your excessive indulgence, you may return to the gardens. Not before. And then, only to look. Not to work. Do you understand that? Or must I repeat this in English to ensure your compliance?"

The strength of his hand was entirely daunting. She hadn't forgotten what those hands could do. She froze under it. "I understand."

"See that you do." Sarek let her chin go and went back to his meal, slightly appeased but obviously still rankled. "This is not the first time I have expressed disfavor over your carelessness in this regard . You have been resident on Vulcan long enough to be aware of the dangers of too much sun exposure. Nor are you a child, to require my constant admonitions. Which I grow weary of ever repeating. Have you any explanation for your negligence?"

For a moment, Amanda, her gaze still lowered to her plate, had to bite her tongue to keep from reminding her Vulcan husband that the only serious injuries she had ever suffered on Vulcan had been at his own hands, some of which she was still recovering from. She clenched her hands and forced herself to count to ten, before she said something that would only escalate a bad situation, reminding herself he might only be too capable to give her more. And this time there would be no one to rescue or come for her. She didn't dare test his perhaps fragile control with opposition by pointing those facts out to him. But oh, how she was tempted, even now.

Sarek apparently didn't have the patience even to let her get to ten.

"I see that you have nothing to say for yourself. Perhaps you are understandably fatigued from your day's exertions. In that case, I suggest you retire."

Astonished past her control, Amanda raised her eyes to stare at Sarek, who looked back at her, cool but with intent in every line of his body.

"**Now**, my wife."

There was no mistaking that tone. He was still in control of himself, at least for the moment. But just barely, and it would not do well to task his ire further. Hardly believing what she was doing, she rose from the table, leaving her barely touched meal behind, her hunger unappeased, and left the room. Not until she reached their own room, the door closed behind her, did she let herself react. She put her hand to her mouth, biting a knuckle, not sure whether to break out laughing or just be silently appalled at what she had sunk to.

Her husband had just sent her to bed without her supper.

Better to laugh than to cry.

But she closed her eyes and stood shaking, doing neither.

_To be continued_

_Copyright Pat Foley 2005_


	16. Chapter 16

**Holography 2**

**By**

**Pat Foley**

**Chapter 16**

Sarek raised his head at the sound of piano notes. Amanda had seldom had time to play these last years, and he had rarely heard her since she had taught…her son. Now he sat back from his work, listening with anticipated pleasure as she started to pick out the opening phrase of a tune with one hand, the notes tentative, as if she had walked past the piano and was only half considering playing. There was a pause and then he heard her play the full melody, and it struck a memory of his own. He had heard this once before at a diplomatic party. But then it had a vocal accompaniment. He noted with unease that it was a plaintive melody. Then, as Amanda continued to play, the lyrics came back to him:

_They're writing songs of love_

_But not for me_

_A lucky star's above_

_But not for me_

_With love to lead the way_

_I've found more skies of gray_

_Than any Russian play_

_Could guarantee_

He rose to his feet, utter disbelief warring through him. Was this some sort of message? He entered her study, but she didn't notice, eyes closed, playing the song from apparent memory, perhaps even unaware of what she was playing, lost in thought_._

_I was a fool to fall_

_And feel this way_

Coming up behind her, he gathered her wrists in one hand, pulled her fingers off the keys, and with his other he shut the piano with crash. He didn't stay to see her expression of shock, nor did he trust himself to, at the moment, deal with her further.

How dare she?

xxx

By the time Amanda approached her first month in her new role, things were going from bad to worse for her, and occasional laughter, even laughter mixed with tears had almost entirely flown – unlike her, as unable to flee as a pinned butterfly. She felt a silent sympathy and commiseration for Spock, one she had never comprehended before. Sarek was …obdurate.

He was patient by his lights, at least given his circumstances, more so than he could be expected to be. He was relatively controlled in that he had yet to lose his temper again enough to hurt her. But he was immovable as the stone of his own fortress, and she was learning just what it felt like to live with him, not as a wife, accorded a relative equality, even though that seemed limited at times to humans, but as a chattel subject to that unyielding iron will.

She felt hemmed in on every side by it. She marveled at her son, living under it for as long as he had. For two cents, and a clean bill of health on Sarek's part, she'd consider enlisting in Starfleet herself if that was the only relief from that iron control.

Even as she had drawn up the restrictions of her own life, she had never really understood what she was getting into. She'd known, intellectually, that Sarek was feeling threatened, challenged. She'd understood about giving him control of her movements and her interactions. But she hadn't quite extrapolated how far it would go.

How could she? She had somehow thought things would go on as before, but she'd just…stay home. Play house, so to speak. She'd never wanted or considered such a life, a throwback to an era where women didn't work outside the home, didn't have an equal footing in society. But she'd assumed that's more or less what it would be. Perhaps stifling and restrictive, but bearable. What a fool she had been. That wasn't at all what she was experiencing.

The indulgent husband she had once had, who cared so much that she was content and happy, that she had whatever she needed and wanted, even before she thought of it herself, that husband was gone as surely as her freedom. The one she had now not only didn't consider her needs, he was supremely indifferent to them. As if accepting chattel status had made that cease to exist for him. Or perhaps it wasn't that, perhaps it was that he was fighting so hard for his own control, he had nothing to spare for anything so insignificant as her emotions. She didn't know. She couldn't ask.

He didn't care if she were happy or sad, or if she were feeling anything at all. It was as immaterial to him as it had once, before, been so all important. All that seemed to matter to him now was that she do exactly what he told her to do, and that she not do anything he didn't. And what was worse was that he didn't expect her to do anything. He didn't **want **her to do much. She sometimes felt he would have been happy if she went into suspended animation from the time he left until the time he came home.

Nor could she really talk to him about it, or about anything, much. His stricture on no discussion or even thoughts about others left her with little she could ask about his day, and she had nothing she could really talk to him about regarding hers. Their conversations were trivial to the extreme. If she found that troublesome, Sarek apparently did not.

Of course, he found intellectual stimulation elsewhere. He was all she had.

But he apparently had no intention of fulfilling any such needs for her. He raised no subjects with her, barely spoke to her but for admonitions, and without ever saying the word, seemingly expected that as chattel she was not only divorced from will but from thought.

She still couldn't quite believe the look on his face, the barely controlled violence in his manner, when he had pulled her hands off the piano keys. She hadn't thought she was doing anything wrong there. Obviously, Sarek thought otherwise. She wouldn't try that again.

At the time she agreed to chattel status, it had not really occurred to her that as a chattel she would have only one function. And that Sarek might be just Vulcan enough to hold her to that. Even now that she did understand what she really was to him, her mind skittered away from the idea. She had no doubt her acceptance of that too would come in time, but she couldn't face it yet. She had enough to do just getting through each day.

Little things that she had taken as minor annoyances to him before – because he had mentioned them, though in the past she had usually brushed them off – were suddenly big issues for her. They had apparently always been big issues to him, hence his mentioning them. She just hadn't understood.

Like getting sunburned. Even though she had patiently explained to him when they first came to Vulcan that humans could easily become sunburned even on Terra, he had taken her getting burned on Vulcan as some sign that his world's environment was hostile, dangerous to her, and he had always been unsettled when she forgot to take precautions to limit her exposure. She hadn't realized how much it had bothered him. She'd thought it merely one of his Vulcan quirks, a possessiveness that had alternately amused and annoyed her, depending on her mood of the time. Now he was in a position to prevent that. It made sense that he did, of course, he was fighting a condition that such concerns only exacerbated. But now he no longer expressed concern or snapped at her for it as he used to. Her first breach as chattel had resulted in a four day confinement to the house. And when he'd released her from that he'd made it clear that if she did it again, the next one would be longer. And after that, he intimated, she might well lose the freedom altogether.

It was too bad her present wardrobe didn't include a straw hat. And something with long sleeves. She'd have fashioned something for herself, if she hadn't been worried about what Sarek would do if he caught her out of uniform, so to speak. And his movements weren't that predictable. She warred between secret rebellion and the choice she had made. Even as she knew the choice she'd made had to win. But it wasn't easy.

She'd been walking in her rose garden, her pleasure much constrained by worry about how much sun she was getting, when she'd heard a sound behind her. No one was supposed to be in the gardens at this hour but her, and she'd turned in sheer panic at being seen, and what potential repercussions there would be for that, only to draw a relieved breath and a half laugh, half sob. A litka was ambling away, a weasel like animal that tunneled under the garden walls and preyed on the birds within. She'd caught her breath and was a fair way to calming her racing heart. Until she felt something run down her arm, and turning it over, saw the long scratch, already bleeding, from the rose thorns she'd brushed against when she'd startled.

Her first thought was that Sarek would be livid.

And with that thought came sheer utter panic, startling her in its depth.

It's just a scratch, she told herself.

But with it came the conviction that he wouldn't be appeased by that at all.

Nor was he. She'd wracked her brain for some way to cover the marks, but the rose thorns had dug deep. Odd that in her then panic she hadn't felt it at the time. Even treated, there was no way he was going to miss it.

Nor did he.

She kept her gaze lowered and her movements restrained during the evening meal, hoping he'd be appeased by enough by her submissive manner that he'd not look too closely at her. But one of the scratches had curled around her arm, not much, but enough for his sharp eyes to notice.

He took her hand in his, and turned her wrist over. The scratches looked even worse hours later, running down her forearm across her wrist. For a moment he just stared at them and then raised demanding eyes to hers. She froze like a rabbit in a snare.

"How did you come by these?"

"I got scratched by a rose."

His eyes narrowed. "How did you possibly manage that?"

It was his usual, how can my wife be so inept attitude. She understood that, Vulcan to human, he would feel that way at times, even as she bridled at it. But it was a bit much to take under the present circumstances. Yes, she was occasionally clumsy, she didn't have his precious Vulcan control. But she also didn't have a biology that like a ticking time bomb, threatened one's life and the lives closest to one at regular intervals. She wondered what his response would be if she pointed **that** fact out. Or just told him the truth, yes I am so clumsy that I can't walk in a garden without coming out bleeding. Would he then level the rose garden to the sand? Or did it still serve some purpose, even as the wife for whom it had been created slowly disappeared?

She saw that he was still waiting, albeit with a touch of impatience and she shelved all her ponderings and told the raw truth. "I got startled by a litka."

"You were careless."

She couldn't help bridling at that. "If you say so." She tried to keep the challenge, the resentment out of her voice. And failed utterly, even as she felt the flutter of fear for doing so when he was like this. Why was it, that she could stay neither fully demoralized nor fully angry? That she reeled constantly between fury and yes, fear. Either one would be difficult enough, but having both responses together in her was making her seasick, and getting her in deeper trouble. Why was it, that with his every move to intimidate her, to subjugate, her courage rose, as it did now, challenging him just enough to get dashed again. Why couldn't she just …submit? Accept what she had chosen, and live with it? She lowered her eyes, furious, not even so much with him as with herself, trembling with the force of both enmity and trepidation . Hadn't she agreed to this? Didn't she have any control? Couldn't she do the simplest things without error? She was supposed to be intelligent, and not just intellectually but **emotionally** intelligent, something Vulcans couldn't claim, given they repressed rather than managed them. Yet when Sarek treated her like this, her emotional maturity too often mirrored his.

And wasn't he right too? After all, how much of an IQ did it take to know how to walk in a rose garden without getting scratched or sunburned? To know when to say "Yes, my husband" and bow her head and not risk getting knocked into next week? To follow through from choice to action. She'd chosen submission if not with full knowledge, then at least with the awareness that it was a specific remedy to a pressing problem. **She** had chosen it. No one had forced it on her. Was she so stupidly proud she'd risk her husband's life? After she had agreed to this arrangement? What did that say about her honor? And who **was** all this hubris for? It wasn't like Sarek would appreciate it, and there was no one else here but her. What biological condition required **her** to be so obdurate.? At least Sarek, god help him, had an excuse.

"And now you are insubordinate." His tone was still very mild. He might have been merely commenting on the weather.

She faced her choice, all over again. It was one thing to make it intellectually. Another to do it. Day after day after wearying, unending day. The thought of a lifetime of such days made her rebellious spirit rise again.

Sarek reached out and unlooped a strand of hair from where she had once again pushed it back.

"And you forget again that unbound is unbound. What must I do to teach you to leave it thus?"

He'd been teaching her only too well. His constant nagging about it was becoming more than she could bear. It **was **too much. For a moment, she resisted the role she had assumed with every fiber of her being.

I don't like this. He doesn't have to keep rubbing my nose in my choice. I could have left you to die, you bastard. And your own mother would have put me on a starship herself. She looked at him, longing to tell him so. He looked back at her, his fingers still on her hair, brushing her face. Inches from the neck he could snap with almost no effort. No doubt he sensed the gist of what she was thinking though their bond, if not the specific words. And even that didn't quail her in this mood.

This is when you have to play it for real, Amanda. When you don't want to. When you can't feel it. He's either worth it, or he isn't.

She closed her eyes at that truth.

"I regret displeasing you."

"There are forms for all behavior. A chattel pleads for leniency in true submission. On her knees."

She opened her eyes, looked at him, and saw no yielding in him. It didn't surprise her, it was a hardly unknown in her husband's culture. She knelt to T'Pau every time she met with her. She had never really minded. At the back of her mind was the gratitude for what T'Pau had done for her son, in sealing him as her heir before Council. And with that the certain knowledge that one day every snotty-nosed Vulcan brat who had ever bullied her son would be required, at least in certain ceremonial occasions, to kneel to him. She was human enough to take a certain revengeful relish in that thought. Even if Spock was not.

If she was ever free enough to even see it.

As to that, she'd been more or less expecting Sarek would demand this of her at some point. Now.

If she had the courage to do it.

Courage wasn't her problem.

She moved to her knees, bowed her head and put all the humility she could muster into her tone, in direct contrast to how she had spoken a moment before. Perhaps he was right in some respect, there was something about the position that washed the anger from her, and left her feeling chastened. "I beg forgiveness, my husband." His hand was still on her shoulder, her throat. She had a sudden sharp memory of her son, head bowed as hers was when Sarek was obdurate, and once again, she didn't know whether to laugh or cry. She forced back the former, and then, with the see-sawing of emotion that was tearing her to shreds, suddenly felt the latter sweep over her, a mist of tears before her eyes. Anger gave her courage before him, whereas submission like this made her acutely aware of how vulnerable she was. One reason she hated it. She was no longer a person by Vulcan law, but a possession, and he could do anything to her, anything at all. He could break her neck and plant her in the garden with her roses, and there'd be no legal repercussions, no one would question or challenge or punish him for it.

No one would challenge. That was what this was all about, after all. An ancient Vulcan remedy to a specific physical condition. An unpleasant medicine, at least for her. She'd done the challenging, at least according to T'Pau, and by Sarek's lights, and the consequences had come home to her. Quite literally. Now she'd never leave.

She hadn't really accepted that yet, either.

It didn't feel natural; it didn't feel right, this antithesis of what their relationship had been, the love they had shared. She hadn't realized how different human and Vulcan cultures were, because she found her position ever more outrageous and impossible to accept, even as she was forced to accept it a little more each day. Whereas far from resisting it, he kept tightening that iron grip over her with an utter surety that told her this was far more natural for him than she had ever suspected. If he regretted losing their past relationship, she rarely saw any sign of it. Certainly he was resolute enough in this. It was taking all her shaky discipline not to …panic… considering where all this would lead.

How could she possibly have thought she'd just …stay home…and everything else would be more or less the same? He didn't even **talk **to her anymore. He just gave orders.

How I hate what I am to become. And even if this is what he wants, if it pleases him, still how he must loathe me at some level for doing it, for being the coward that I am. The fool that I am. Perhaps he would have only truly honored me if I had challenged like Vulcan women do. Even though I still would have been chattel at the end of it, at least I would have shown that much spirit. Maybe I should have.

But the thought of Sarek, fighting some thug on the ceremonial grounds made her resolution rise again. Not my husband.

How can I love him still, and yet be so frightened of him now, love him still, and hate him for what he is doing to me, and both at once? Will this ambivalence ever end? Will I ever choose one absolutely? Or would that be worse, for god help what I'd become then. Perhaps it is better in this culture to feel nothing, nothing at all. No wonder Vulcans choose non-emotion. For the sheer blessed peace of it.

She forced herself to look up and met his gaze, waiting for whatever would come.

Sarek regarded her for a beat, then he flicked an eyebrow and said curtly. "Don't do it again." He let go of her neck, took her hands and drew her abruptly to her feet.

She went so weak with relief, she didn't know whether he meant the scratch, her hair, or the tone in her voice just moments before. And she didn't dare ask. Well, either one was not an option.

She fought herself back to some semblance of calm, stilling her trembling, swallowing the hard knot in her throat, the wash of unshed tears. And if she ate practically nothing, during the rest of the meal, he neither noticed or cared.

She was getting dressed the next morning, brushing the tangles out of her long hair, when Sarek crossing the room, stopped at her side, regarding her in the mirror. She raised her eyes, a little hesitantly. It was not a good sign.

He reached out and twisted a strand of her hair around his fingers for a moment, before dropping it and smoothing it back with the rest. "The gardens are off limits to you today, my wife."

She looked up at him, stricken. She had thought he wasn't going to punish her for that scratch. Had he changed his mind? She dropped her gaze, letting her hair fall forward to cover her flushed face. "Yes, my husband." She wouldn't dare ask how long it would be this time.

She could feel his eyes on her. His hand moved, smoothed back her hair, his hands moving down her shoulders, down her arms, down the curve of her waist to the small of her back. She didn't move. Then she felt herself start to tremble. He hadn't touched her sexually since the rape, she had been wondering if he ever would again, outside of Pon Far. And she was not sure how she felt about that.

"Amanda."

She raised her chin, forcing herself to meet his eyes. Eyes that were strangely puzzled.

"Today is secanth."

She blinked, not sure what he meant. Days of the week had no meaning for her anymore. She had no appointments.

"The tour groups come through today."

It suddenly made sense. "Oh. I had forgotten."

"So I had assumed. So you will not go out this afternoon." He looked at her again with that strange reluctance in his manner. His fingers had once again twined round her hair. "However, today you **will** have a visitor."

She raised her eyes, stunned.

"T'Pau insists on your attendance. Since you cannot go to her, she will come here."

"Is it permitted?"

"She is matriarch. You are a daughter in her House. Unless you refuse her, she has the right."

She hesitated, considering the strained tone in her husband's voice. "If her request displeases you, my husband, I **will **refuse her."

A flicker of reaction appeared in his stony eyes before he shook his head. "By tradition, unless she disrespects or attempts to otherwise circumvent your status as my chattel, you have no cause to refuse her, nor may I deny her the right to see you periodically. It is her obligation as matriarch to verify your …status."

He's saying she can make sure I'm still alive. As long as she doesn't try to get me out. Well I guess that's something.

Then a thought occurred to her. T'Pau never went anywhere unaccompanied. Profound embarrassment washed her skin pink at the thought of T'Pau's usual set of courtiers, especially T'Lean, who seemed to hate her so, seeing her in her current abject circumstances. Obviously she hadn't learned total humility, for she felt she would rather die than bear that. "Sarek. She's not going to …bring anyone with her…will she?"

"She will bring two guards. They will stay outside. They will not see you, nor will you see them." There was no doubt as to the demand in his voice now.

Amanda nodded in agreement. "Yes."

"It will be a regular appointment, my wife." Sarek's look chilled. "But we will not discuss these arrangements again. Nor will you discuss her visits with me. I do not want to hear of them again. Ever."

"No, my husband."

He nodded and dropped his hand. "Enough."

_to be continued…_

_copyright Pat Foley 2005_


	17. Chapter 17

**Holography 2**

**By**

**Pat Foley**

**Chapter 17**

"Thee are well, daughter?" T'Pau said when she arrived, her keen eyes evaluating her.

"I am well enough." She looked at T'Pau even as searchingly as the matriarch regarded her. It was amazing to actually see another person. It made her feel almost normal again.

But T'Pau looked her over, head to foot, and Amanda flushed at this pointed check for bruises, one made easier by the fact of her wearing very little. T'Pau seemed satisfied at the result however.

"Thee have done very well. I have been concerned, given thy husband's resistance to my command."

"I was not expecting it."

"Another very old precedent," T'Pau said archly. "My assistants labored long to find it, and I am sure forgive neither of us yet. Thy son is not the only one who can search clan archives."

Amanda lowered her head to conceal a smile, hoping T'Lean was included in that, and gratefully accepted the change of subject. "Spock is doing well. He had some trouble with …bullies…but he solved that problem. He has acknowledged your offer to him, and that he would serve in turn." She had come to realize, from Spock's reply, to be relayed to T'Pau, that the matriarch's words claiming she would meet her son's needs had been very nearly a formal statement adopting him. And Spock's words in turn acknowledged that, though she had heard some strain in his voice when he did. Sarek had been neatly sidestepped, at least for now. For all that Spock had wanted his freedom, the strain in his voice had told her he had yet been reluctant to see his father supplanted, even by his grandmother.

T'Pau was still considering her, seeming less interested in Spock at the moment. "He has needs?"

"None at present."

T'Pau nodded. "Thee have spoken to him of this?"

Amanda colored. "No! T'Pau, he must not know."

The matriarch raised an eyebrow. "It may come to that."

Amanda flushed at the bare statement that her confinement could well be absolute. "If it does, then it does. But not now. Please."

"For chattel, thee expresses thyself strongly."

She held herself together, even as her whole body seemed to once again resist against the status she had chosen. "What purpose can it serve to tell my son of this?"

"I have no plans to do so. I merely warn that thy manners are at odds with thy status. In thy husband's present state, thee would do well to be warned against such behavior."

Amanda ducked her head. So T'Pau's words had been intended as a kindness, however bluntly put. "Thank you."

T'Pau regarded her with an impassivity that belied her words. "From chattel to wife is a mere… continuum of degree, T'Amanda, at least, for wife to a Vulcan. Submission is never easy, particularly for those…bred to command. Such can take a lifetime to learn. In thy case, it may be a particular life's work, with life consequences."

"I will try harder." She looked up at T'Pau and asked the question that still haunted her, and that she could never ask her husband. "You don't think Sarek will…will die, do you? From his manner I cannot tell if he is worsening or not. At times, I fear…that he might be."

"He is fighting it, that much I can see. He allowed me to see thee, though it took some weeks. This will not be the work of a week, or a month, T'Amanda."

"I know. I'm not expecting that."

"His condition is essentially unchanged. But that thee survive …apparently undamaged so far," there was a question in the matriarch's voice, "… is promising. Thee cannot forget that thee was not before."

"I suppose. I'd like to think, need to know, that this is all for something. It's so hard for me to tell."

T'Pau gave her again that keen look, as if she were trying to peel back all her layers of skin. "Thee does not wish his death? It would free thee."

"How can you ask? I am not such a monster as that."

"I do not speak of monsters. Thee now have had a taste of life as chattel. It is not to everyone's preference."

"It is not to mine, but I will not trade my freedom for Sarek's life."

T'Pau finally asked what she wanted to know. "He has not hurt thee? Returned to the violent possessions of before?"

Amanda colored. "He has frightened me. He has been strict about the conditions of my status. But he hasn't touched me in that way, since he has brought me home." Amanda was treated to the rare sight of the matriarch of Vulcan, visibly stunned.

"So long," T'Pau murmured. "And in such a state."

"Is it…wrong?"

"I had never expected it," T'Pau admitted, and eyed Amanda with new respect. "He values thee very much."

Amanda shook her head, choking back a half laugh, half sob. "No. Oh, no. If you saw how he treats me, you wouldn't think so."

"How is that?"

"Like an imbecile child. It would be amusing," she shook her head, "if it were not so very hard to bear."

"Perhaps he treats thee thus because he fears to treat thee as a woman."

Amanda's eyes widened. She hadn't considered that. She hesitated, then dared to ask, eyes lowered, "Then you think it is not because he has lost all respect for me, as I am?"

"No."

Amanda looked up at the blunt negative. She'd learned from Sarek that when Vulcans said no in that way, they meant it.

Across from her T'Pau flicked an eyebrow in acknowledgement. "I give thee better chances than I had at first, T'Amanda. I am well pleased."

"What were my chances before?" Amanda asked in purely morbid curiosity.

"Such as should not be spoken. I told thee, thee would do better to challenge."

"Set some thug after him with a lirpa? Not **my** husband," Amanda said, with a determination that still surprised her. "I'd take one to him myself first, if it came to that. Or to me."

It seemed to surprise T'Pau as well, and her look of respect deepened. But she shook her head slightly in reproof for all that. "T'Amanda. Strength of will can be an admirable asset, and one shared by our family. Thy fortitude helped thee make this choice. It can help thee bear it. But it can **not** help thee execute it. For that thee requires other qualities."

Amanda's face flushed and she ducked her head again. "Stubborn got me into this, and it won't get me out."

"Yes. There are all manner of disciplines. In thy case, obedience and submission must now be of equal value."

"I know. I **know.**" She looked up. "I had not expected it would be so very hard." She shook her head and confessed. "Much harder than I thought. But I **am** trying."

"Then I will not, as is said in your language…nag."

Amanda made a strangled sound, and looked up quickly. "How can you make me laugh, in such circumstances as these?"

"In these circumstances, it is most required." T'Pau regarded her reluctantly. "Thy husband is not pleased that I am here, so I will not tax him with a long stay, lest it come back to thee. Have thee any pressing needs? I do not say I can promise to fulfill them, only that I ask."

"Only my husband well. And ….freedom. My life. His life." She looked up at her mother-in-law, tilting her head, hands raised. "Mere inconsequentials."

"None of those can I grant."

"I know. But in their absence, little else has importance."

"Then I will take my leave.

Amanda knelt, offering T'Pau her hands in the familial embrace.

Instead of taking them, the matriarch took her face in her own hands, and leaning down, kissed the top of her head. As Amanda knelt stunned, the matriarch said. "I thank thee for my son, honored daughter." And then she took her leave.

Only the sound of the aircar stirred Amanda from her reverie.

_to be continued…_

_copyright Pat Foley 2005_


	18. Chapter 18

**Holography 2**

**By**

**Pat Foley**

**Chapter 18**

It was easier and harder after that. Easier because she had one other person in her life, one whom she could speak to with little fear. And harder because Sarek was jealous, even of that. He grew harsher from it, locking down his control to contain it, and Amanda suffered for it. Perhaps T'Pau should not have interfered. Amanda longed to ask T'Pau's opinion, but she couldn't bear the thought of losing that one personal contact, the breath of freedom T'Pau brought with her like a cool breeze if the matriarch reconsidered. Perhaps before, had she known his reaction, she might have well refused, if she could have. But now that she had that touch of normalcy in her life, she clung to it. Needed it. Because Sarek grew more obdurate, rather than less.

Any flaw in her submission was noticed and commented on. She had such trouble remembering not to push back her unruly hair, particularly when she was preparing dinner, but heaven help her if and when she did. Sarek called her on it, every single time, and when she failed to control the habit, it cost her privilege after privilege. Such few privileges as she had, mostly bounds. She went weeks without being allowed in the gardens, went days confined to the house, even suffered being confined to their suite. He finally, eventually, ruthlessly broke her of it, though she had been made so nervous by his presence that she suspected he took little pleasure in having done so. It had not been an equal trade off for him, because she ended up avoiding him as much as she could, shrinking from him, having to be virtually commanded to stay in his presence. He had not liked that. But she couldn't help it. She might have hated him for what he was doing to her, but she couldn't allow herself even that luxury, she was struggling so hard to stay passive under that inexorable will.

There were times when she would have far rather taken a lirpa to him. Or to her damn hair. But she did not.

She thought often of T'Pau's kiss. T'Pau loved her son too, and no one but she could or would help him. The T'Pau she had so long thought she had known, the terrible vindictive matriarch who had shunned her for twenty years was not the same woman who had thanked her for her son's life and kissed her in gratitude for it. And the Sarek she was facing was no more the Sarek she knew and loved than was the Sarek of Pon Far.

If passivity was her only weapon, she would fight with it, to get her husband back. She knew he was in that Sarek, somewhere.

She knew he loved her. Because he never touched her. As frighteningly possessive and jealous as he was, and with the shared history of their marriage where he had rarely let a day go by without lessons or lovemaking, now he never laid a hand on her. And for that she was…grateful. The Sarek whose attentions she would have eagerly welcomed was not whom she faced now. She didn't resist his harsh restrictive treatment of her, but she couldn't love him for it. And even she could tell he was not ready for it. For it could be better said that he never closed his hands around her. When he did touch her, fingers against her chin, a hand smoothing her hair, taking her wrist or her arm to turn her to him, she could feel the strength he was holding back, could see the tension in his hands as he kept them from closing on her. No, he was not ready. She was not yet ready either, had not perfected the submission that would perhaps give him the control to do so. For after twenty years of marriage, of bonding, she felt something of what he was fearing. That if she resisted even slightly, in his present state he'd break her neck. Not before, perhaps, he killed her in an even more violent rape than the last.

And there was no rescue this time. Submission was her choice, her role, her responsibility. She had agreed to it, T'Pau had warned her and she didn't need to see Sarek's tension and yes…fear… to know how he felt. He was as scared, perhaps more scared than she. She didn't care to have her neck broken, but Sarek was not a monster, no matter what, and it was hard not to think that perhaps the greater horror would be for him, finding himself doing so. Living with himself, however briefly, afterward. No she didn't wish that on him.

She didn't need to walk in the gardens any more, she had a new activity, one she spent hours in pursuit of. Forcing her own stubborn, stubborn will to acceptance.

And at times she thought herself as stubborn as her husband, as her son. She would get close, so close and then Sarek would say or do something and she would feel her temper flare again. And he knew. He had to know.

She spent hours now, in her husband's favorite meditation spot. It was a way of feeling closer to him without having to be close to him. There was a stone arch there that gave her respite from the sun. She could look across the desert, to the city far beyond. But instead she would look at the desert, at the mountains, at the red sky over head. And sometimes, when it grew particularly hard, when she felt her own horror too closely, the task too never ending and impossible, she would look at the desert floor far below. She would think, how convenient. But that was only a thought that skittered at the edge of her conscience, a scorpion in the sand. She didn't indulge in it. At the back of her mind was that it was a release only for her. She'd leave her husband to a far worse death.

And then Sarek seemed to calm a little. Or perhaps she did. It was beginning to be hard to realize where his temper ended and hers began. They went for a week where he didn't punish her for anything and she didn't seem to do anything wrong. The terrible tension she lived under lost a bit of its grip. Even that was a mixed blessing. Under the peace of that week, she grew restless. One night, after Sarek was sleeping, she lay awake, plagued with doubts, with more than doubts, with horrors. Was this all her life was to be? A chattel was kept for one reason only, and she wasn't even fulfilling that, yet. A yet she wasn't eager to see superceded. Part of her wondered that perhaps she resisted submission so much because when it was accomplished, what would be left of her?

Is there life after embracing the status of a chattel? She asked herself dryly. Oh, Amanda, please. Get over it.

Pride goeth before a fall, and I must have been **so** full of it, to have wound up like this.

She could almost still laugh about it. Just barely, and still. But she was not down and out yet.

There was always the morbid question of how long and what exactly it would take to make her so.

Her restless spirit demanded some action, and she slipped from bed. Sarek didn't stir and she studied him a moment. He had lost weight too, this had been hard on him.

She wandered into the outer suite, then crossed into her study. Since she had written her papers and Sarek had ignored them, she had not been in here. This was part of a life she had eschewed. The room reminded her too much of happier times, when Sarek would come in from his nightly meditations, tempt her away from her work, gentle hands and lips on hers. Another set of people, another life.

She gave the desk, the computer that would not rise to her voice a wide berth, and crossed to a couch opposite, beneath long windows that gaped with the blackness of Vulcan's moonless night. The sound of night birds, of the scream of a hunting lematya, came faintly, but were not enough to shatter the night deep silence.

She sighed and lay back. And stared thoughtfully at the bookshelves opposite.

She rose and crossed to them, ran her finger across the volumes, lovingly. She had used to read a little before sleeping every night, if Sarek was late coming in, if she was not working late. It was as much a habit of hers as meditation was to Sarek. But she had stopped since her confinement. She had not needed the mesmerizing inducement of words when she was so injured and ill that she'd found it hard to stay awake during the day, much less sleep at night. Afterwards, the habit had gotten lost in all the other changes in her life. She had not thought of it. Like all the indulgences of her life, it had disappeared.

But not completely.

Without thinking now, she took a book from the shelf, and went back to the couch, stretched out across it, and opened it to familiar pages, to words so well known she had no need to read them. The habit of her past, the deep contentment that used to spur her to sleep, came back to her. The effect was as captivating as a drug. She could read. She spared a glance for the shelves opposite, and closed her eyes in bliss. She could read. For the first time since Sarek had brought her home, she abandoned herself to the luxury of fictional reality, lost herself in alternate worlds, forgetting, at least for a bit, the trial of her confinement, her limited circumstances, her cloistered life. She had forgotten this escape.

xxx

Sarek came back from sleep with the awareness that something was wrong. Twenty years of sleeping with his wife in his arms made him acutely aware, even in sleep, when she was not. He opened his eyes as his searching arms clutched on nothing, and then sat up. The room was empty.

He felt it like a hammer blow to his heart.

He was on his feet in an instant, hands trembling, breath coming fast, his mind reaching for hers through the bond.

And felt her, close. Not close enough but close.

He followed the tug of that mental link, through the doors of his bedroom, crossing the outer suite to the small room where Amanda used to work. Faint light spilled from the doorway, and when he entered he saw her, lying across the couch there, blond hair tangled across her bare limbs, cheek propped on one hand, the fingers of another splayed across the pages of the book she was reading.

Relief and desire warred within him.

"Amanda. What are you doing?"

She looked up from her book and stretched, and smiled, actually smiled a little. He had not seen the expression on her face for so long, it seemed unfamiliar.

"I was restless. I couldn't sleep and I didn't want to wake you. So I came in here."

Sarek regarded her, his heart still racing from having woken to find her gone. Relief was fading, leaving a desire that warred against his fragile control. He wanted her, now, with a primitive urge that he struggled hard to contain. And she looked up at him as if totally unaware of his passions, so beautiful but so human, he doubted anew that she would ever be able to withstand them.

"This is not what you should be doing."

Amanda stilled, her eyes widening, smile fading as if it had never been. She eyed him uncertainly taking him in anew.

Sarek put out a hand, and after a moment, she, almost reluctantly, surrendered the book to his possession. He held it in his own, as if weighing it, as his other hand drew her to her feet. "By this time, my wife, I had thought you possessed of a better understanding of your role. As chattel, your place is in my bed and only in my bed. And you do not leave it unless I give you permission."

She flinched then, and tore her eyes from the book in his hand to meet his, astonished at his bluntness. Out of respect for the initially voluntary sacrifice she had made, he made some efforts not to "rub her nose" as the human phrase went, in her status. He rarely used the word. He disliked even thinking it in relation to her. And when he issued corrections, at least when he had control of his temper, he tried to do so in a way that caused her the least emotional upset. That he spoke to her so now told her how seriously she had misstepped. He could see the muscles moving in her throat as she swallowed. The panic and the anger her absence had engendered was fading under his own disciplined attempts to subdue his reaction. But he was still finding it difficult to control. He could hear the sound of his own harsh breaths in the quiet room.

Amanda had lowered her head, "I regret having displeased you, my husband." But she did not say she would not do it again. He waited - the implication in his waiting plain. He could see her beginning to tremble, and she caught her lower lip briefly between her teeth, before taking a breath and trying to still herself before him. And still she did not follow her apology with the expected assurance that he waited, wanted, to hear.

He eyed her, waging a silent war of his own. Still weighing the book in his hand. "I am disappointed in you, my wife, that you are so delinquent in your duties that you find yourself restless when you should be fatigued from their performance. Perhaps I can assist you in a re-execution of them. Attend."

He set the book down on the table. Behind his back, Amanda spared it a last brief glance before following him.

xxx

She woke the next morning, her head aching. Sarek had taken her in his arms after he had brought her back to bed. He had done no more than that, but his touch had made his anger almost palpable to her, and she'd lain tensely half the night, only too aware of the barely restrained strength of those arms around her, before succumbing to an exhausted sleep. And now the room was empty. Needing less sleep than she, he had undoubtedly not suffered from a shortage of it, and gone to work as usual. She drew aside the sheet and a full memory of last night came back to her.

Sarek. Holding her book in his hand.

Her heart caught in her throat, and she ran to the other room.

The book was not on the desk where he had laid it as he'd left the room. She stared at the pristine surface, tears coming unbidden and unwelcome to her eyes.

What does it matter, she told herself. You know so many of them by heart anyway. And he was right, you know. Yes, it's a archaism that you – and he—forgot to include or address until now. But it is a form of the outside world, that you have eschewed. You have no right to it, and he has every right to take it from you.

She raised her eyes, forcing herself to look upon the empty shelves Sarek had no doubt cleared when he woke. Just as he had taken her clothes and hair ties and every other form of possession and access her role now made obsolete.

And stared upon full shelves. And neatly shelved in its usual place, the volume she had been reading last night.

Not gone. But neatly, pointedly, shelved. Sarek never shelved or bothered with her books, had learned in a lifetime of marriage not to disturb the seeming chaos of a system that spoke order to her. They had different habits: She read for a little while before she slept, he meditated, and she was used to putting her book aside when he came to bed. Not shelved. And he'd never restored them to their shelves before, even as he was Vulcan neat in other areas. That he had come in here this morning after waking, a room he had no reason to enter otherwise, that he had taken it up and done so now for the first time in twenty years spoke of another kind of order. Delicately stated. She trailed her fingers across the spine, feeling the tears falling from her lashes. Oh, Sarek….

Is this your tactful Vulcan way of issuing a warning?

I could give this up too, banish it without a qualm, for six months. But if it is for life… Oh, if this, if all of this is really for life…forever….She stood there, awash in grief.

And then a thought struck her. These were not her only books. Just a few favorites she kept close. She had a large collection of some ten thousand when she'd come to Vulcan as a bride, and she'd been adding to it over the years. Now nearly thirty thousand strong. She found her feet flying, hair streaming behind her like a flag, up stair cases and down galleries, to the huge library and media center at the top of the house where the majority of her collection reposed under climate controlled conditions in arcane company with all the ancient clan texts Sarek kept, and the other media accoutrements necessary to a 23rd century society.

And of course the door didn't open at her approach, or to her hand. Why should it? That part of her life was past. Irrevocably. All of it. Past.

She had known it would not. Why torture herself with the proof of what she had relinquished? Did she still not really believe what she had chosen?

She dropped to her knees before the door, putting her face in her hands, the tears spilling out between her fingers. Gratitude at what little Sarek had …perhaps…left her with in her study, if she ever dared reach for it again, warring with horror as the real impact of all she was, had, given up. With no certainty of ever reclaiming.

It is the little things that break you.

You spend half your life raising a Vulcan son and then, meeting a friend for lunch, you hear the strains of "Happy Birthday" through the classroom doors at the Terran Enclave school and see twenty human children around a cake with glowing candles and spend five minutes sobbing brokenly in the lavatory for what you will never have.

You marry a man who is perfect to you even as you clearly see every flaw and facet of his character, and together you build a marriage, the necessary fairytale of your own making, which must and does rise triumphant above fights and tears and sehlat hairs, dirty cereal bowls and demanding tempers, difficult children and stubborn husbands, and all the general squalor and sublimeness of everyday life. And you are happy. You are happy. Then one day at a Terran embassy party the ambassador there forgets himself and makes a disparaging remark, the enmity clear and unveiled in his eyes as he looks at you, and you realize how your life is perfect only to you, and that in making it you've stepped outside the pale, and the gates you lived within before are now barred against you. And you can't catch your breath even in the oxygen enhanced air of the Terran embassy, you are shivering in an ambient temperature no longer comfortable to you, because you hadn't intended, in making a new life, that you'd be isolated, pushed outside the fold of a society that now sees you as an enemy, a rival. A traitor. And you can never explain to your husband, that sole sharer of your isolated world, how and why a chance disparaging remark, something you've experienced before and know you will again, has set you crying.

Or you love your husband more than your life as you knew it, more than your career, more even your very freedom. You prove that with a sacrifice more terrible than anything imaginable. And then you find yourself sobbing over stacks of paper bound with string with words printed on them. As if you would not willingly, happily pour some incendiary over the whole lot, light a match and cheer as the flames rose, if it could mean you'd have your real life back and your husband well. And yet there you are… sobbing.

She cried on her knees before that locked door, one of many now and certainly one of the least that mattered, her tears falling from her warm hands to the cold stone floor, her unbound hair falling forward to cover her trembling frame as she bent under the weight of a grief that threatened to destroy her.

It is the little things that break you.

I cannot get out, the starling said.

She thought of her husband, holding her last night not in love but in barely restrained fury, having given voice to her status as he had never yet done so to her face, and thought, he really does mean it, that is all I am to him, all I ever will be, forever, and she thought she would break under the weight of a grief that seemed to know no bounds.

Nothing could provide an escape for this all encompassing reality. She was all on her own, sans any respite, not even a virtual one. Even mere fiction, the arcane words of long-dead humans, raised her husband's terrible anger and threatened his sanity, his control, his very life. And hers.

To manage to survive this, she could not even hope to dream.

She wondered, just briefly, if he really **was **worth it.

She thought of Sarek's favorite meditation spot, the long, long drop to the desert floor below. One step, two, and gravity would solve all her problems.

And then she thought of T'Pau's kiss. And of Sarek, not the Sarek she knew now, but the one she had married. **He** was worth it, worth anything. She might never have him back. But if she had anything to say about it, he would have **her**. For as long as he wanted.

She wiped her face and rose from her knees with determination. She had made her choice. Terrible it had been, was, would be, but she had made it, and she would not regret it. Nor let it break her.

She **would** learn to accept it.

_to be continued…_

_copyright Pat Foley 2005_


	19. Chapter 19

**Holography 2**

**By**

**Pat Foley**

**Chapter 19**

_Six months later._

"Spock debated the Principles of Surak against the use of force in his Command class at the Academy. He won the debate on points, but he says he doubts that the more "traditionally violent" members of the command officers who teach the class were convinced. But he apparently has impressed some."

T'Pau had closed her eyes as she often did when listening to Amanda's accounts of Spock, to help her envision the foreign nature of her grandson's surroundings, and in that privacy that her temporary blindness engendered, Amanda regarded the old woman with a fondness she wouldn't have believe of herself twenty years ago. Amanda still "attended" T'Pau, spinning the old woman tales of Spock's Starfleet life as though she were Scheherazade. Though now the woman came to visit her, bringing only two ceremonial guards, who waited outside in the garden while T'Pau was within.

Of course, her feelings were probably some variation on absence making the heart grow fonder, for during the six months since she had left T'Pau's house and Sarek had brought her home, she had seen only Sarek, and once a week, her mother-in-law. No messages, except one a week from Spock. No communications, no vid broadcasts, no colleagues, no students, no friends. She hadn't stepped a foot outside the locked gate of her home. Amanda had not even laid eyes on T'Pau's guards, for she had no wardrobe suitable for any but family meetings, and it was no more seemly for her to see others than it was for her to be seen. No one but T'Pau and Sarek had the full truth of her circumstances, not even Spock, whom she sent cheery messages to, somehow avoiding the subject of her teaching.

Nor did he ask. Embroiled in learning an entirely new culture, her weekly tapes were something he enjoyed probably for the sole reassurance of hearing her voice, without caring what she said. She'd told him as much, knowing from being away at school herself that it gave a boy status to get family mail, it gave him points to be able to wave it under the nose of his peers, half of whom technical orphans with family who did not write, and it cost him nothing to pay absolutely no attention to her counsel and advice. She'd told him this, and under his protests added that it was certainly something he understood, much like how it gave a boy status to have refusal of two Vulcan Science Academy appointments on his record, even as he had been secretly planning to attend Star Fleet Academy. Spock had not attempted to misunderstand.

But he did more for her than she did for him. Oh she helped him interpret human behavior, and gave him advice on "making it" in Terran culture. But his need for that was growing less as other mentors, officers, teachers, friends grew to importance in his life. His world, his life, was widening, even as hers had shrunk. But that was as it should be for him. He seemed happy in Starfleet, if she was any judge, certainly happier than he had been on Vulcan, and she was happy for him. She thought about that, sometimes, of him free on Earth, while she was confined on Vulcan. At times, she even found the irony amusing. She tried not to think about it otherwise.

She still served one important function for him, as intermediary between T'Pau and her son, and wasn't that an interesting position to be in. The understated messages they sent back and forth to each other were full of meaning, much as her conversations with her son had been, under Sarek's monitoring ears. She had never realized how much her son loved his grandmother, and how similar his expression of that love was both to his mother and his grandmother – in spite of their manifest differences. How odd that she and T'Pau had that in common. Or perhaps not odd.

But whatever she did for Spock, he did far more for her, perhaps was the saving of some part of her sanity, to have someone dependent on her, even the little bit that Spock was. It eased the starkness of her confinement, gave her an additional purpose in life, made her valuable in a way she very much needed. And it meant she existed somewhere, other than this place, was not lost to all, everywhere. She lived in her son's mind, if not anywhere else but these rooms. And she cherished every word of the new experiences he shared with her. She felt very lucky to have such a son.

"I am becoming very fond of this grandson of mine, T'Amanda," T'Pau said, uncannily mirroring her own thoughts in a way that occurred more and more frequently.

"Spock is easy to love," Amanda agreed absently, looking out the window with an unconscious longing that had nothing to do with the stretch of barren desert she was viewing. Like a bird in a cage. T'Pau thought, and totally unselfconscious and unaware of her denied desires. "He has few vices," Amanda continued. "Of course, he **can** be as tiresomely stubborn as his father."

"And the father?"

Amanda looked back, coloring a little. "He seems … fine now. The same Sarek I married. More or less."

T'Pau sniffed at that. "The initial period thee stated ends tomorrow. Are thee prepared?"

Amanda shifted her shoulders uncertainly. "I haven't asked him."

"He has not spoken of it to thee?"

She shook her head. "He would not. I told him at the beginning that I wouldn't speak of it with him, until the first six months were over. I made him promise." She gave T'Pau a defiant look. "And I don't **want** him to speak of it, if it will tax his newly regained control." She drew a breath. "I made my bed, T'Pau." She looked down at her mother-in-law soberly. "And I **will **lie in it. However long it takes him." Her eyes were drawn back to the desert. "It isn't so very bad. Not like it was at first. Humans are the most adaptable species in the universe. We can get used to anything." She smiled at T'Pau, though the smile didn't reach her eyes. "With all due respect to my revered Mother-in-law, we have proved to be more adaptable than Vulcans, in this regard."

"I think thee are not as adapted as thee could wish." T'Pau said, considering her narrowly.

"I don't think about it. It doesn't do any good to dwell on what I have relinquished. And it would be counterproductive to Sarek's recovery. Which I will not risk. At least my son is free. And my husband…seems… well now." Her voice was tinged with the hesitation of doubt at the latter.

"How can thee tell?"

"He is not angry. Though I strive not to give him occasion for the same. If he is, then at least he controls it well enough that I see no obvious sign of it."

"Does thee see obvious sign of contentment?"

Amanda turned away from the persistent interrogation. "Oh, Mother, this is about survival, not happiness. Don't ask me such questions."

"I think he is not."

Amanda lowered her head, gritting her teeth a little in frustration at what was beginning to feel like nagging. "I am doing the best I can. I am doing what I said I would do. What I have finally learned to do. That learning was hard won, hard enough. Please don't tax me with doubts, not now, not when it seems to have finally helped."

"**Thee** are willing to settle for this?"

She stared up at her mother-in-law. "Isn't it rather late for me – or for anyone else - to care about how and for what I have settled? **My** choices were made. They are now past."

"And **my** interests are not for you to dictate, child," T'Pau said with asperity.

"As for that, I am not in a position to dictate to anyone. I've learned **that **muchwell enough." Amanda spoke with some frustration but with her gaze lowered..

T'Pau sighed to herself that with humans, some things had to be said in plain words. "I meant that I have a daughter as well as a son."

Amanda glanced up at that marked kindness. "I appreciate your concern. But T'Pau, you were there when I decided. You **helped **me decide this. How **can** you ask me to change now what can't be changed?"

"I ask." T'Pau said, as indomitable as always.

Amanda shook her head at this in frustration. "You ask the impossible of me. I have no rights in this."

"T'Amanda, thee are a scholar and a scientist, and have traveled across the universe to live on another world. Have embraced another culture and woven the two well enough to raise a worthy child within it. Having done all this, does thee now wishto spend the restof thy life as **chattel**?" T'Pau said the word with all the disgust she could bring to it. "Knowing only these rooms and these walls and my son's sole voice?"

Amanda had paled under T'Pau's words. Up till now, T'Pau had never denigrated her for her status, and the betrayal from this final source, hurt all the worse for it. "Chattel I may be," Amanda said, trembling with the force of her fury "but I traded my freedom for my husband's life and sanity, and I will not tolerate your scorn for what I bought dearly. I have few rights, but one is not to suffer under anyone's oppression – or their presence – but he who holds me. Including yours, T'Pau, matriarch though you may be. A chattel is not clan, but property. Thus I bear **you** no obligation of obedience; I am under no authority but his. If thee find me so offensive, thee may leave!"

T'Pau rose and Amanda took a step forward, her anger fleeing under a rush of panic. "Oh, mother, please! I beg forgiveness."

The matriarch went to Amanda, who had dropped to her knees. "Hush, daughter."

"I couldn't bear this isolation unrelieved."

"It is I who must beg forgiveness, daughter." T'Pau gathered her close and for a moment rocked her like any human mother. "I did not intend to humble thee further."

"No one could humble me further," Amanda said, wiping her tears from her face, but not making any effort to move from the old woman's arms. "No one. I've sunk as low as anyone could get."

"Thee are wrong. He who holds thee has sunk far lower." T'Pau said slowly. "And bears it ill. As do we all. Thee does not understand, daughter. I did not speak from scorn. Nor does shame hold a part in this. What thee has done, honors Sarek, honors me, honors all in our clan. We bear thee… a great debt. It is difficult to bear such a debt, unrelieved. I most of all, for it is I who have burdened you with the responsibility of my son."

Amanda looked at her, eyes wet. "I don't feel …honored. Mostly I try not to feel anything at all, but when I do it's the opposite of honored. Shamed, more like."

"Human emotions lack reason."

Amanda choked in a mixture of tears and laughter, and drew back from T'Pau's embrace. "I should expect that from you." She wiped her face. "At least you made me laugh. That's a first in a long time too."

"Should thee, daughter?"

Amanda sighed. "No. You've been…very kind to me. But I can't **do** anything about this, Mother. It is in Sarek's hands."

"Thee think thee have no influence, even in thy state?"

"I am not Vulcan."

"How does this matter?" T'Pau asked, puzzled.

Amanda shook her head. "You don't understand. Maybe it is different for Vulcans, maybe **you** would feel honor in my place. I don't. I can't. In such a position as I am, you lose your…your confidence…and your competence." She looked up at T'Pau's uncomprehending expression. "Call it the effect of operant conditioning, if you must. You must believe in it. Your people use it – persistently enough - for other things."

"Thee also have a will."

"Do I? Or did I give that up too? I don't know anymore. I haven't forgotten who I was, and I still am that person, deep down. But I'm also someone else now. Someone Sarek needed me to be. And at times I hardly recognize myself. I don't know **who** I am. You are right that I can't say I like who I've become, but this is who I am now, and I had to – and have to - learn to live with it. There were never any guarantees it would not be forever." She sighed. "It is easier for me not to think about it. I beg you not to make me. It only disturbs my calm, and that could disturb my husband's. You would not wish that on him…or me."

"That is the worst danger of all. For both of you."

"You disapprove of what I have become."

"I disapprove…only if it is carried on past need. That there was need before, was obvious. That there is need now, is less clear to me."

"I cannot tell Sarek what he needs."

"How not? Does thee not see what he needs now, as clearly as thee understood all this time?"

"I see that he is no longer raging in the vrie. I also see that he is not always happy. But he has not always been discontented either. In some respects, this," she raised her hands as if to emphasize herself, "does please him."

"Fah!" T'Pau said in disgust.

"Oh, mother, if I do not judge him harshly for this, how can you? You know yourself Sarek is no saint. But I do not know enough of Vulcans and his condition to know if he can ask for more. If he can risk more. Or even if he truly wishes more." She drew back. "Why do you think I can know him better than he can know himself?"

"Thee are his wife."

Amanda shook her head. "No. I was his wife. I forfeited that role. What I am now," Amanda shook her head again, refusing to say it. "I cannot know. I cannot challenge his rights as he has been given, and this is his right. Sarek will do what he must, for both of us. I trust him in that. Don't you understand, Mother? I **have** to trust him. How can he ever get well, if he does not have that from me? Isn't that what he needed, most of all? Isn't that what all this is about?"

She looked up, frustrated. "You cannot tell me, even I am not so stupid, as to believe this is about locks and keys and clothes and who I see or don't see and how I do my hair. All of that is **nothing**. Somehow, unintending, in a critical moment, I misjudged his needs. I broke his trust. I was his wife, and he perceived that I betrayed him. And that betrayal broke him. I can't do that to him again. If I have been broken, a little, in his recovery, is that not fair recompense? I do not begrudge him this, and I will not have **you** judge him for it either," she said with sudden fierceness. "He may not have had it before, but he **will **have my trust now. I **will not ask**, I will not even **look** a question to him. Do not require it of me, even as matriarch. I would – must – refuse."

"I see that thy child did not get his stubbornness solely from his father. Very well, honored Daughter," T'Pau said, and took her leave.

And dry-eyed and if not serene, then resigned, Amanda watched her. In the six months of her confinement, she'd become fascinated with leave-takings. T'Pau's. Sarek's. Even Spock's she reviewed in her mind, his final walk to the gate that …did…open. She always watched Sarek when left the house, and now she watched T'Pau until she saw the shadows of her ceremonial guard move across the court stones and she turned her eyes away lest she see the guards themselves. That was Forbidden.

She was not at all tempted to see strange faces, she locked those emotions hard down, and after six months of isolation, even the prospect of strangers, of others, was oddly frightening. She would not even consider jogging her hard won equilibrium for such a mixed freedom as the sight of a forbidden stranger. But she still watched leave-takings, with an unconscious, compulsive desire that was perfectly safe to indulge.

She knew she couldn't get out.

She regained her serenity after the confrontation with T'Pau, and it stayed with her the rest of the day, a quiet companion. At first hard to invite, then easy to lose, and now, finally, so habitual it was difficult to lose. She greeted Sarek with it as he returned home, it stayed with her as they shared an evening meal and spoke of inconsequential things. And it went with her to bed.

If Sarek had other thoughts on his mind, her lowered gaze did not see them and did nothing to invite them. Nor did she care to, dare to, look for herself. That lay one step from hope, and hope was dead to her, an emotion she had long buried and refused to acknowledge. She needed that for her sanity, for she could not have accepted her state if she was tortured by hope of some eventual release. And Sarek needed it too, that's what all this was about. Knowing she belonged to him past all other ties. Forever. She had divorced herself from hope, dissected that state from her soul with a driving need as clean and ruthless as if a surgeon had done it with a knife. A bloody but lifesaving operation, for both her and her husband. She was serene.

If tonight was any different to Sarek, he showed no signs of it in his behavior either. The only sign of disequilibrium was that she was a little more resistant than usual during the evening's lesson, not by word or action, or any sign of reluctance, but in response. That sometimes happened after a visit with T'Pau, who brought the air of the outside world in with her as Sarek did not. It often took her a day to settle. She'd locked down her emotions so tightly after the old woman had left that even her physical responses were suppressed, and it took Sarek almost twice as long to bring her to release. And that wrenched a sharp cry from her, also rare, for she was usually silent.

But then after the lengthy session, and the stresses of the day, she went serenely to sleep.

And giving briefly to the luxury of respite, Sarek slept for a little while too. But not for long. He was not serene.

to be continued

copyright Pat Foley 2005


	20. Chapter 20

**Holography 2**

**By**

**Pat Foley**

**Chapter 20**

Sarek woke as always, secure in the feeling of his wife in his arms. She lay curled up against him, her head on his chest, one arm wrapped around his waist, one leg thrown across and between his. He looked down at her, after twenty years still finding her amazing. After all he had done to her, and could yet do, yet still she favored him with that unconscious, innocent trust. Even at this worst of times between them, yet part of her never doubted some part of him, and showed it, night after night. At times he thought it had been his saving grace.

**She** had been his saving grace. How could he be a monster, remain one, before one who favored him so.

But even as he recovered his health and strength, he felt Amanda was losing some part of hers. Slowly, little by little. As if every day, another piece of her was gone from him.

He rose on one elbow and watched his sleeping wife. She showed no sign of the abuse he had inflicted on her six months ago. Her bones had healed, her bruises faded. She was thinner, never having regained what she had lost in the months after Spock's leavetaking. She ate very little, as if such desires had no hold over her, as if she were forcing herself to maintain, just barely, an existence that was no longer quite real to her. The whip thin slenderness gave her more of the look of a girl, rather than the woman she had been. Not the mother of a grown son, certainly. One more sign that the Amanda he had known was slipping away.

Irrevocably?

He dreaded the answer to that.

He shifted, and in the dim starlight, saw something gleaming in the corner of her eye. He reached out and captured the drop of moisture on his finger and tasted it. Salt. Her body had been drenched with perspiration from their lengthy session, it could be that or a tear, he did not know.

He knew less and less of her as time went on.

He **had** less and less of her as time went on. As if she inhabited another plane of existence than his. He had felt the same when she had first become pregnant with his son, the knowledge that she was gong on a spiritual journey he could not share, leaving him behind, perhaps to return, perhaps not, but inevitably, irrevocably, changed.

She had been eager to take that journey then, even if it had meant her death, eager to go, even if she left him behind forever. Even with her child unborn, she had loved her son that much. She had looked back at him, her husband, and she had loved him. But she had left him for the long physically and emotionally trying trial of bearing a hybrid child. Returned, to his utter relief. But no longer entirely his. Not just a wife, but also a mother, and a fiercely protective one. He had never had her entirely as his own since. Perhaps some of his resentment of his son stemmed from that.

He had forgotten all that. Forgotten, as women claimed to forget the pain of childbirth. He had buried deep his utter panic and absolute relief of that period between her conception and delivery of their son. Forgotten, now, until Spock had left, stirring once again a crisis in their marriage.

For now she was leaving him again. Perhaps not as eager, and certainly not with as desired a goal, but with the same fierceness that still had the capacity to surprise him. She had not divorced him. Instead she had divorced some essential part of herself to stay with him. Cleaving to a sword that was slicing her in two, so that he would have some part of her that she'd perceived he'd needed. Leaving this obedient shell of herself with him.

And what of that?

After he'd frightened her so badly the night he'd caught her reading, she had changed. Something had changed in her. It was if he had taken something final from her. She had embraced the role of chattel that she had chosen, altered her manner, and stilled her desires. Removed herself in spirit from all that she had been forcibly removed from, even as she could not remove herself in body.

At first it had been an unutterable relief to some part of him. Her role, played to perfection, had given him that quiet calm he had needed to regain his semblance of self. Even as she had changed, perhaps with her as example, he had fought his way back to some control over his body, his emotions, his desires. In the still calm of her behavior, he'd finally found the ability to get some stranglehold over the morass of passion and madness that had claimed him. Her utter submission, the antithesis of challenge, had calmed him. And bit by bit, he had remastered himself. He would not say he was the same as before. In him was the terrible knowledge of what he could be, had been. But he had regained his essential control.

That terrible struggle had so consumed him that he didn't realize till he was through it, finally, relatively…sane… again, that he had gone weeks, months, without seeing her blue eyes, so long had she kept her head dutifully lowered when he spoke to her. He had tipped her chin up. She did not flinch at his hand, but still she kept her gaze down. He had called her name – the name he so seldom used rather than 'my wife', because he felt it revealed too much about him when he said it – and she had drawn a breath, raised her eyes to his, but beyond them was a frightening blankness, a curtain dropped over an emptiness.

He had been… terrified.

Conversation had yielded nothing, she would not be drawn, possibly could not be drawn. At least not by him. And he had been …afraid… to push her too hard. She was already too distant. What if he sent her further away?

With the sharp awareness of a clock ticking that was the inevitable existence of a Vulcan male, and the conviction that he had regained enough control to do so, he had reinstituted the pon far lessons that had been a ritual from the first days of their marriage. It was necessary. By his estimation the next Time was little more than a year away. And their relationship required a good deal of retrieving. And perhaps, perhaps it might ease the distance between them.

She should have been frightened after her past experiences. He was hardly sanguine about it himself. But if she was, she did not show it. She had submitted obediently, her emotions locked down as if she were beyond such considerations as fear. Or desire. He had been careful, gentle, patient…and determined. She did… eventually… respond. After a fashion. But even he knew the difference between lessons and lovemaking, as Amanda called it.

Both had been a part of their past lives, but they had had more than a few discussions regarding the two. For Sarek regarded the former as unavoidable necessity, as requisite a part of their daily routine, or even more so, than food and sleep. Their lives, both of them, depended upon the disciplines such rituals would instill.

Which Amanda had never fully appreciated. She disliked the passivity required of her in them, and, torn between career, childrearing and housekeeping, and an all too human need to sleep once in a while, had sometimes in their past life expressed frustration with an unvarying appointment taking precedence over so much else, particularly when she much preferred a less stylized version of sex, one where she was allowed to participate.

That had not disturbed Sarek. In fact that was what lessons were for, to reinforce proper responses under all conditions against the day of Need, so that regardless of his behavior or hers when the Time came, she would be conditioned to yield, and respond, appropriately. It was necessary, practical, prudent, essential, a discipline meant to preserve their lives in the Time, when all discipline and control would desert them. If she came to her lessons distracted and unwilling that made them all the more useful an exercise. He needed practice with her in such a state, for in general her love made her only too quick a study.

"We never have any trouble in Pon Far," Amanda had argued, one day when a sick child who'd kept her up all the night previous, requiring a visit from a healer, a sehlat who had eaten half a door trying to reach said child, requiring an immediate veterinary visit, an overdue research project, a paper that had been promised to an editor three days ago, and a desk overflowing with student work that needed review had made her less than enthusiastic about their usual 'appointment'.

"Because you are well trained." Sarek said complacently. "And will continue to be so."

Amanda grimaced as she brushed out her hair. "I hate that word. It makes me feel like our relationship is some sort of Pavlovian experiment."

"Would you prefer another?" Sarek asked, indifferent to the semantics.

"What I'd prefer is if we just made love instead. I don't need to be **trained** to respond to you. Maybe Vulcan women, who come to their marriage unloving and unloved do, but that's not us. I **already** respond to you, quite willingly. I always have. And without some elaborate, learned operant conditioning reinforcing it. Isn't it enough that I love you?"

Sarek had been exasperated in turn. "No. We do …make love." he used her human phrasing, there was no equivalent phrase in Vulcan. "But this is entirely different, Amanda. One is an indulgence. The other a discipline."

"Only Vulcans would make a discipline of sex," Amanda said, stripping off her clothes.

Sarek had shrugged. "Perhaps only Vulcans need to, my wife."

"I am not Vulcan, and I **don't** need to. I do very well as I am." She tossed the antique coverlet off their bed and tumbled down on it, waiting for him.

"Well, I am Vulcan." Sarek had sighed. "And no, I do not consider it enough. Amanda, merely because you have never had a seriously negative experience in Pon Far does not mean it could never happen. This is a necessary preventative, and I do insist on it. I will not allow you a choice in the matter."

She had lain back, resigned, watching him undress. "So you're telling me all Vulcan marriages include this."

"No, not all, not to this extent." Sarek settled beside her on the bed.

Amanda sat up, beginning to be outraged. "What am I, some sort of slow case?"

Sarek had laid her back down, patiently taken her wrists in one hand, pinning them above her head so she should not sit up again, and began a caress.

"Hardly, my wife. I meant that it depends on the marriage. Some Vulcan males fear the fever to such an extent that they live apart from their wives, suppress their desires, and wait for the madness to overtake them. A self fulfilling prophecy, for it can take as long as seven years for that to be so, but when it comes, it is a true madness, all the more so for their having shunned the experiences up to that point. Their wives invariably fare badly, often suffering severe injuries. Sometimes death." His eyes had met hers. "Not a circumstance I would choose."

"No." She squirmed and shivered under his hand, in spite of the warmth of the room. "So those that don't do that, engage in this."

"Not all. Stop fidgeting. You are behaving like a child, my wife. Relax."

"What **do** you expect of me when you-" She half sat up, in spite of his unyielding grip on her wrists. "What do you mean, not all?"

Sarek drew an exasperated breath, "You are inattentive, my wife."

"And you are not answering my question, my husband."

He had drawn back, black eyes impatiently meeting hers. "Surely a range of behavioral responses to biological needs is not unusual in humans as well?"

"We're not talking about humans."

Sarek flicked an eyebrow, conceding that point. "Vulcans do not all submit themselves to this kind of discipline."

"Then why with me? Don't you trust me?"

Sarek looked pained at the hurt in her eyes. "This has nothing to do with you, Amanda. It is traditional in our clan, particularly so in the direct line."

"You still haven't said why. Don't you think I have a right to know?" When he continued to look reluctant, she pressed. "Wouldn't I know anyway, if I were Vulcan?"

Sarek looked more uncomfortable. "That is true. Our clan… were the greatest warriors. All our …passions…run high. When Surak instituted the reforms, he set high standards for personal behavior. Including the proper treatment and regard of wives. It is unconscionable to subject one's wife to unnecessary danger or injury. This is meant to lessen those risks."

Amanda flicked an eyebrow, unimpressed. "Yet another thing I owe to Surak," she lay back down.

"He is the father of modern Vulcan philosophy."

"That was 5000 years ago, darling. I haven't any complaints about my "proper" treatment, except **for** this. I'm too much in love with you to care for being treated like a party doll."

"What is a …party doll?" Sarek asked, puzzled

Amanda sighed. "Oh, you don't want to know."

"Very well, my wife," he shrugged, not really interested. "As you say."

"What I mean is, don't you think it's time to …get over it?" She raised her head. "Oh, no. Is that I-Chiya, being sick again?"

"No." Sarek pushed her down, ignoring the sounds of a sehlat retching that he could hear even more clearly than his wife. He reminded himself to clean it up before she found and called him on it. "I-Chiya is penned, and Spock is asleep. And I wish **you** would pay attention to your present duties, my wife. You are sadly distracted."

"I am not. I can talk **and** feel at the same time. Humans multitask that way. Even if Vulcans don't."

"You are correct that Vulcans …don't. Not in this regard. Very well, then. I would appreciate it if you would not distract **me**."

She sighed in a long suffering manner, closing her eyes and subsiding. He looked down at her, half amused at her pointed submission, and now sadly distracted himself. He was beginning to share her mood. Something he tried to resist, and failed too often by his lights. Too many intended lessons ended up in lovemaking. His controls were sometimes shameful. And yet… he gauged himself and decided he had enough control for this... "It is not merely from Surak alone. It has been handed down as a necessary tradition from father to son. I am following the same standards my father was set, and his before him. Wives are too valuable a resource to unnecessarily abuse." And then he added wickedly. "Even human wives… my wife." He let go of her wrists, waiting expectantly for the predictable reaction.

"Why you- " Her eyes flew open, blue flame, and she reached for him in mock outrage. He drew back from her lunge and then indulged himself in a brief, very childish, very undermatched wrestling bout, thoroughly amused by the outrageous absurdity of her mock aggression, enjoying her laughter and squeals of delight as he responded in kind, letting them play this undeniably risky and potentially dangerous game of faux denial, of pretend conflict, of real if mock struggle and resistance.

It was risky because it flew in the face, was in direct conflict, an antithesis, of all modern Vulcan standards of behavior between bondmates. The first time she'd teased him this way, he'd been so shocked he'd been almost unable to respond, and then when he had, he'd discovered how heady the rush could be. Far more for him than for her, since in his society anything but a wife's absolute submission was now virtually taboo. And aggression, even in play, doubly so. Well aware of that, this was something he never allowed between them unless he was very sure of his control.

But it was a catharsis for them both, a relief from the constraints Vulcan biology constantly held over their normal behavior. No doubt a sensible Vulcan female would never engage in, or consider it having any benefit worth the risk. But even though Amanda played the role of a Vulcan wife with more skill than he had considered possible, it was an artificial relationship, even for Vulcans. An inequality even he found wearing to enforce. And Amanda had far more reason than he to tire under it, it was all the more artificial for being not of her culture, and because she was the one required to submit. A Vulcan woman had 5000 years of cultural conditioning to accept her role, Amanda had no conditioning but his. And he was sometimes only too reluctant to apply it, to insist on it, to demand it when she did resist, even when it was then that his culture demanded she so sorely needed that lesson. Delinquent though that made him.

Though only a brief respite, this game was not merely …fun…it cleared the air between them, made them momentarily equal in some respects… at least until his passions inevitably flamed and he pinned his wife underneath him.

But then, if he remembered at the last minute to subdue his instinctive reaction and let his wife's hands go, he would feel her arms come tight around his neck, her body not just acquiesce but draw him in, clutch him to her as she murmured words of love. And as he responded in equal passion, he would think how much sweeter this submission that was real, not learned. That was chosen, not yielding. Worth any risk. And reject the notion of imposing lessons – unnecessary, inconsequential, ridiculous as they seemed - at least for this night.

Thoughts of that Amanda plagued him. One who teased him, and laughed in return, one who argued, and defended, one who could attack, and could be hurt in turn…and one who showed love and accepted it.

All his married life, he had wrestled with this issue in varying degrees. Tradition, custom, prudence dictated one standard of behavior. And Amanda, his very human wife, sometimes required another. He had sworn to her, to himself, from the very first, that they would have a Vulcan marriage. That in spite of his own passions, he would maintain the strictest of Vulcan standards with himself, with her, never risk his human wife to the worst of his Vulcan past. And he had failed, again and again and again in that regard. Failed himself, and her. And not simply because of her, but only too often, perhaps even usually, for himself. Sometimes he felt that his own indulgence had betrayed her. Betrayed them. He had let his passions too loose, he had indulged himself, and indulged her, and what was the result? He had hurt her. Nearly killed her. More ways than one. Like a pre-Reform monster of 5000 years ago. This was his disgrace.

But how could anyone, Vulcan or human, consider this better?

He had an obedient wife now. A chattel in behavior, who lived now according to the strictest of Vulcan traditions. He had once wanted to give her everything, and tried to. But no one could consider her indulged now. When he had been in the grip of the vrie, he had taken everything away that even remotely challenged his possession of her. Loathing himself at times, and then at others, he had…almost…enjoyed it. When he had finally wrestled himself free of that syndrome, he'd been reluctant to change anything that might challenge his still tentative control. And so she still had nothing, living in a condition as ignominious as the least of chattels. All he could give her then, was her life, uninjured, and that had been difficult enough for his control.

She still smiled…a little. But it never reached her eyes, even when she deigned to let him see them. She didn't tease or laugh. She did not sing. She lowered her head and agreed with him placidly, rather than argue, defend or have an opinion. She was incapable of attack, but she also seemed now nearly impervious to hurt herself. It was as if she was far removed from all her previous emotions. He had done that to her. Perhaps she still loved him. He honestly did not know. He knew that if she did, it didn't seem as important to her as …what could he say…honoring him. Which seemed to require her living in a stylized unemotional way that was as comparable to her former love of life as his imposed pon far lessons compared to their former love making.

He didn't …feel…honored.

He certainly didn't feel love. Not love as he had known it before. But then, how could he?

Because of him she was confined under his hand, she had no rights, and was now irrevocably and forever his. What was left of her. He had taken love from her, when he had taken her other freedoms. And even if he did not deserve love, he had also taken joy from her, her smiles, her laughter, her songs.

And her career. He had, a month back, finally forced himself to look at the papers she had written after he had first confined her. He did not really understand them, her field was nearly as incomprehensible to him as his was to her. Perhaps more so, hers required a degree of …deduction, of leaps of logical thought, he could not follow. But she was a careful writer, and made plain as if to a clerk or a student, what she had wanted done, and even he could review references. He had done that himself, reluctant to speak to anyone else of her. And then he sent the articles to the usual journals her papers appeared in. And been putting off queries and requests for her since. Even pre-publication, in review, they were generating quite a stir. The messages had been flooding in, talk of seminal theories, of Federation level awards. He'd made the decision, with the return of his sanity, that he had to take that small first step to releasing her, one she might never need know of, if it proved too taxing for him. And seeing what clamor it had created, at least in her circle of science, he half regretted having sent in the papers. It was hard enough to consider letting her go, much less to even greater demands for her by others. He wrested for weeks with his decision, his possessiveness, his sheer selfish jealousy for what part of him still believed was irrevocably his and only his.

She is mine.

No, honor didn't come into this.

And yet he didn't consider this better.

He wanted his wife back. Even if all that they were together had brought them to where they were now, even if he had been wrong in the past to take her to wife, was taking risks for the future in not retaining her as chattel, still he wanted her back, all of her, his life back, and hers with it.

He just didn't know if he could have her. If she would have him. It was her risk as well.

But he was fully aware, after months of seeing her fade into insubstantiality that he could never have her back under the present conditions

He would have to let her go. Knowing that he still might never get her really back. Knowing that if he gave her the freedom he'd kept from her, she might use it to leave him. He wanted her as much as ever, more than ever. The sacrifice she had made, for him, for them, had made him cherish her all the more.

What if she chose…tradition? It was logical. She had been the victim of an aggressive act, one which would give pause even a to Vulcan woman, bred to the possibility. While her present situation was not ideal, it was…safer…than returning to her former status. Amanda was more than capable of highly logical decisions, even from an emotional basis. If her fear…of him outweighed other considerations, she might well choose the state that granted her the most protection.

He closed his eyes in pain at the thought. He had rejected tradition in first choosing his wife, rejected it in myriad ways in their marriage. How ironic if she chose that for him now?

Or what if, in regaining her freedom, she did choose to leave him? Could he …really…let her go? Was he capable of it?

And as he watched her sleeping, he realized with a pain so great, it was almost physical, as if his heart had turned over in his chest, that if that were the case, he would free her. He must really love his wife after all. All that research he had done so long ago before he had married Amanda. All the sentiments he had read, and evaluated, and found wanting. Let his wife go? Never.

He had thought never.

And never had come to this. What had he clung to all these years, so sure of Vulcan superiority of devotion? Nothing but an illusion held by a fool. He had never really had her. He had merely been her choice. As she was his.

All the locks and doors and gates and forcefields barred against her, within which he held her confined, none of that made her his, not in the way he wanted. She had been more his when hundreds of others had claimed her attention, but she had chosen him above all. She was not his when he pinned her underneath him, her wrists in his unyielding grip, but his when he let her hands go, and she used them to embrace him. She was only his at her choosing, and nothing he could impose on her, not even her present status, could make her his as he wished.

And tomorrow, he would have to let her make that choice again. Release her from a role that she played so well and suited her so ill. Release her from the constraints of speech and thought and action that had shackled her for months. Release her from isolation to a society where he would have to share her attentions with others, acknowledge the claims of others on her.

Release her from her chattel status. That was hard enough. Though a part of him still resisted the notion, he was well able to control it, and was relieved, even eager, now that the time had come.

He tried not to think, tried not to believe, that he might have to release her utterly, release her from a bonding that had failed her as surely as he had.

He hoped, somehow, she loved him still. That he was still her choice.

But if she didn't…

Then so much for never.

Tomorrow.

He stayed awake that night, tense with resolution, forcing himself to accept and embrace what he must do, and hoping it would not extend beyond that to what he dreaded.

_to be continued…_

_copyright Pat Foley 2005_


	21. Chapter 21

**Holography 2**

**By**

**Pat Foley**

**Chapter 21**

The next morning, Amanda woke slowly, aware that something was not as usual. Sarek was not beside her in bed. She sat up, blinking, as he came through the door, carrying the clothes she had banished six months ago. She watched as he hung them in the closet, picked up a folder and came over to her. Sitting down beside her on the edge of the bed, he wordlessly put in her hands, one by one, the legal documents which showed her reinstated on their financial records, the computer printouts showing her reauthorized access to the house security programs, the comm. channels, the computer nets, the sub space links. Her Federation passport, her credit authorizations, her teaching credentials at the Academy, the combination code to her aircar…

As wordlessly, she took each document from him, feeling a little dizzy as one by one they - and he - redefined her life. Her home was no longer a prison. She could walk out the gate, go to lunch with a friend, converse with a colleague, teach in front of a class. She could get into her aircar, fly to the spaceport at Shikahr, buy a ticket and walk on to a starship shuttle with her Federation passport in her hand. Free.

No. With all this, that was still not a freedom she could choose. There was a still a tie, past all documents, that bound her.

"Amanda." Sarek had picked up the frame from her bedtable, and sat beside her, his voice muted. "Do you want your wedding present back?"

"What?" She blinked, looking up from the dozens of talismans of freedom filling her arms.

"Your wedding present," Sarek asked patiently. "Do you want it back into a new account? I did not transfer it, because it is best done by you, since you would have to …to… choose a new code and password… of course…for it to be… truly …effective." He said the last with the barest trace of reluctance.

She closed her eyes, and shook her head, not trusting herself to speak..

"Very well, my wife." He turned the frame over in his hands and then handed it to her. "I believe that is all of it."

She looked at it, the page of notes in her handwriting, written a long, horrible six months ago. She swallowed hard.

"Are you sure?"

Sarek looked at her. "I have you, my wife. I have a part of you more closely than I have ever had before. And for a time, it was enough."

"But no longer?"

Sarek shook his head. "I am losing you. Every day, every smile, every gesture is taking you further away from me, somewhere where I can not reach. Your mind is within mine, your person is confined to this place, your body yields to me." His eyes searched hers. "And yet you leave me a little more every day."

She looked down at her hands unable to meet that gaze. "I am not uncontent." She looked up at him almost defiantly. "I have done the best I could, Sarek."

"You have done, magnificently. But I am well now. And you are **not** happy."

She looked away quickly, as if he had struck her. "Does it matter? It's just a human emotion. And this is your life."

"You have given that back to me, and now I must give back yours. If I were human, I would have you happy and gone." Sarek admitted. "Rather than subject you further. I am not human. But do you think any of this," he waved a hand at the flotsam and jetsam in her lap. "Matters to me in the face of what is happening to you? This is killing you."

"No." But her voice was breathless.

He shook his head. "You do not see yourself. I see it. T'Pau sees it." He hesitated. "It is killing me as well. I cannot bear to see you thus."

She looked at him, a quick evaluative look. "I'm sorry I disappoint you."

"You do not disappoint me."

She shook her head at the sadness of his tone. "If I could help how I feel, I would."

"Amanda," he took her hand in his. "Can you not be happy again, and yet stay? Can we not, somehow…go back?"

She was silent, still, for so long, she frightened him. "Amanda?"

She looked at him. "Would you think me a coward for being scared?"

He breathed out a little. Grateful if it was only that. "No. I gave you more than sufficient reason."

"That's not true. I don't blame you for your biology. That would be rather foolish of me, after having married a Vulcan, wouldn't it?" She looked up at him, and he was grateful, again, that she could. And would. He had seen very little of her lately. "You've always been very kind, when you could be."

Sarek turned his face away. "I have tried. But I have also been tempted. And succumbed. Do you remember the night I caught you reading?"

"Yes."

"You were frightened then, my wife. I had not intended to frighten you. I woke and you were gone, and I …panicked… and spoke harshly. I could see your heart beating through your ribs, your pulse in your temple. And in the anger of my fear, part of me considered how much I had already taken away from you, and how much more I could, piece by piece. For a moment, I enjoyed that thought. Your fear. And there was part of me that relished the prospect for the future."

"That was not you," She said it dismissively.

"Yes. It was. There is that in me which would savor it… even now. But there is a greater part that wants much more. And I cannot have both." He covered her hand with both of his. "I am sorry that this, that I, frighten you Amanda."

"I am sure that I have frightened you at times, without meaning to."

"You terrify me. No more so than now."

She looked down at the papers in her lap. "How long would your control last, under those conditions? If that's true, I shouldn't take mine back." She looked up. "Sarek, I won't say this experience hasn't been …difficult for me. It was…very hard. But it isn't… as difficult…for me …as for you. At least, I have no biological imperatives in that regard."

"No. For you they are of the spirit."

"I gave this decision to you, Sarek. I will not make it for you. If you are not ready, then I can't."

"I am ready."

She looked at him, evaluating him as she had not in months, doubt in her eyes. Then her gaze lowered. "I'm not sure."

"I am. Amanda. Please." He shook his head, staring at her, appalled that she even hesitated.

She looked up at him. "You don't understand. All this time, I've been teaching myself not to want …anything. I knew it could be for life. I had to accept that. I taught myself, not to think, not to feel-"

"Do you think I did not see that? At first, it was what I needed. For a short time it became something I even wanted. But then.. then it became something I could not bear. Even as you showed you could, day by day, I found it more intolerable."

Amanda closed her eyes. "There's a part of me that…dared…dream of this. But its something I've buried down very deep."

"Are you saying you can't…want this…now?"

She looked at him. "Sarek, I taught myself even not to hope. Even today. Especially today. T'Pau asked me yesterday what you would do and I almost threw her out forever. I've built up a fortress against my own feelings. It's not like I have a lock, a key that will open it as easily as your computers can bar or release the gates against me. You spent some time in teaching me that role. Painstakingly, as we both recall. I spent as much time learning it, with every breath, every movement… and hardest of all, every thought. You demanded that of me. You needed it for your survival. And so I needed it for mine. That's a part of me now."

Sarek was silent a moment. "You have said humans are most adaptable."

She sighed. "I didn't say that part of me is gone entirely. But it will take me time to… reconnect… with it. And you would have to help me unlearn …what I have learned. I can't just… get out of bed this morning and go back six months to what I once was."

"I understand."

"Do you really? You would need to be patient with me. I've learned…not to challenge you. How dangerous it is, not just for me, but for you. It's your life, Sarek. You have to be concerned. And I'm still not sure if all of this means that you want that part of me back. I'm not sure you're asked yourself that question either. And it's an important one, one we have to talk about."

Sarek was quiet for a moment. "You are asking me if the syndrome can …will…return."

She hadn't thought through the conclusion to her question, past the immediate issues spread across her lap, but she realized now that was what she had been asking. "I suppose I am."

Sarek considered it reluctantly, like looking on a future death. "It… is… possible. I have proven to be susceptible to it, and it is in my family line." He turned his gaze to her, considering. "I believe it is unlikely, given what we both have learned in the last few months."

"What we have learned… Meaning that you don't want that part of me back that might trigger it."

"I want all of you back, Amanda. Whatever that engenders."

"And what if it lands me right back here?" She raised her hands as if to emphasize her state.

He took them in his. "You have proven you can survive it. If it is necessary, you would again."

She gasped sharply, drawing back, her eyes wide. "Sarek you don't know what you are asking of me."

"Yes, Amanda. I do."

She stared into his eyes, shocked at his conviction. She trembled even at the possibility. "What do you think I am?"

"You are most honorable woman in the universe to me. My T'Ianye."

She looked down, embarrassed and moved. And still unsure. "I'm not a Vulcan legend. That's an awful specter to hang over me. It would be very hard for me to bear it."

"It hangs over us. I know you have suffered. But I have suffered with you, whether you believe it or not. I would not willingly embrace that again, for either of us. I do not think it will happen. Or if it should, I would understand it, and know how to deal with it, hopefully without such drastic measures. I will be on guard for such." He took her hands again. "Just ….try, Amanda. Please?"

She stared at her hands, forcing herself to consider choices. She was out of practice. The last six months she had given up much, including, once she had made the final decision to accept, no to fully embrace chattel status, the responsibility of further choice. An odd freedom, freedom from choice, but one of the few she had had. In a way, she had almost cherished it. When she felt she could not bear one more day of captivity, when her acceptance had worn thin, worn out, she had hugged her lack of choice to her like a security blanket. It was a major factor in her adopted serenity. The thought of choice was …frightening. Now she turned her mind to the necessity of choices again, wondering why they were always so hard, and so flawed.

For even as resigned as she had become, she shivered at the thought of remaining as she was. But she also was …if she admitted it honestly…not sure she could just … return… to the person that she had been. It had been a wrench to relinquish that person. But now she wasn't at all confident she could just walk back into that life. She had changed. Grown in many ways, in spite of her curtailed existence. Shrunk in others.

A part of her realized she was not merely frightened of choice, she was frightened of freedom itself.

There had been some terrible times during the horrible waking nightmare of her confinement - ones that she had refused to admit even to herself in fear that such recognition would drive her mad. She thought of the times she had been drawn to Sarek's favorite meditation point, not to meditate, but simply to ponder the ultimate escape it offered - a step too far, and a drop to the desert hundreds of feet below would offer freedom of a sort. She did not think she had been seriously tempted, but the intellectual awareness was always there – if the confinement grew past her ability to bear. And there were myriad other escapes that Sarek had not thought of, that lay around the house in sharp edges and cunning loops. Even from the depths of her serenity she had sometimes eyed those too, seeing forms of escape everywhere, even within the locked tight doors of her house now prison. Perhaps the very fact of being locked up in one way had highlighted for her those other…escapes. Humans were infinitely adaptable, and ingenious. She had thought Vulcans must be very different, that chattels never took advantage of them. Because, as well as Sarek had trapped the house, if he knew how she considered them, he would have addressed those.

She was not the victim type. Suicide had never been a serious temptation and knowing it would most surely also cause her husband's death had made it even more undesirable. But during the worst of those times, she had hugged her freedom from choice to her. It had saved her from that too. She had found her escape in other ways, in submission, in acceptance, in what she had chosen, freely, and now must endure in captivity. But she had been enough aware of those escapes that until she had mastered submission she felt a terrible temptation. And with choice returned, that horror whispered with her first glimpse of freedom that she should break and run, snatching for what might be her sole chance.

Board a starship, head out for Earth, and live the rest of her life in circumstances less fraught with pain and conflict.

Free.

Telling herself that if Sarek could let her go, he must surely be able to live without her. Was perhaps letting her go for that reason.

Licking the wounds the last year had brought her and finding out who she was apart from this bonding that seemed to claim so much of her, and so often leave her less of herself.

And yet, she could not deny, sometimes more.

As Sarek watched, she put her face in her hands, torn in two, in three, again with the weight of these choices.

And yet… she had said yes, years ago. Said it with the understanding that it could not be unsaid. After all this, she believed, now more than ever, in the terrible strength of bonding, and how much he needed her. And she had done it for Sarek, but she was no more a saint than her husband. She had done it for herself too. She had loved him. She loved him still. Long ago, she had chosen her path, and she seemed only able to hurry along it, sometimes looking back, sometimes peering forward, often worried about whether she was on the right one, but well, there she was.

It seemed even with choices, one really had only the illusion of choice.

I cannot get out, the starling said. And yet, if it had, the door opened, would it fly free for a moment, and then return? Would she? Were choices, once made, truly irrevocable? Or could it be better said that consequences were? Well, she had paid dearly for her choices, and the consequences for her and Sarek had nearly broken them both. But she was alive, and Sarek was alive. And she had freedom…of a sort…in her grasp. If she was willing to risk it. To choose it.

She looked at Sarek, who was watching her, doubt and hope combined in his eyes. "Once done, this can't be easily undone. I am not that flexible to be reconfined in a week if you are not sure. I couldn't bear it. So I must ask you a last time."

"I am well, my wife."

Still, she seemed doubtful. "You're not going to well…lose it… the first time I give you a hard time about something?"

He would have smiled at the characteristic phrasing of her question, if the question itself had not been so serious. And if she had not looked so worried. "I will endeavor not to," Sarek replied gravely, taking her hand in tacit promise. "And if I do, you must remind me, my wife."

She looked down at her hand captured in his. "It would be the reminding that would worry me. You have quite a temper, my husband."

For a moment he flushed, not in anger but in shame, an expression she seldom saw on him. But perhaps appropriate when having his human wife call him on his delinquent Vulcan control. But he regained control and met her eyes with a touch of irony. "You have managed to do so rather effectively before."

"I am …out of practice…standing up to it, and you." Her voice was grave. "And it has brought us to this. I don't want to challenge you as my unVulcan behavior has done before. To hurt you. I don't want you to hurt me."

He hesitated, feeling unsure again. "Amanda, do you wish to live in fear of the past, or the future?"

"I don't want to live in fear at all. Certainly not fear of you. Nor for you. And yet, part of me is afraid. Afraid to stay as I am. Afraid to try to go back to what I was or forward to it again. Afraid I'll make a mistake, and hurt you, risk your life. Afraid I will bring all this crashing down on me, on us, again.

"Afraid of me?"

She hesitated long enough for him to feel the truth of it.

"That too. A little, certainly. You can be …very intimidating," her gaze dropped further, lashes against her cheek like a child. "I'm just…not… sure."

So he had made her afraid of him. Not just a momentary fear at a loss of his temper, but fear of him even when he was in full control. He had honestly not believed it, not of her. Not of what it implied of himself, and at that moment, he hated himself thoroughly. He had taken this beautiful brilliant girl, with the indomitable courage that had allowed her to pledge her life to an unknown, with the innocent trust she had given him from the first day of their marriage, with the love she had dowered him with, and he had made her fear him. He looked at her, and it was as if his heart, confined so long, far longer than she had been confined, broke within him. Even understanding what he was asking of her, he had not thought she would hesitate this long to embrace freedom, would not be so hurt by what he had done, would not consider him so wanting that she would not choose him …again. But if she did not… he damned never and spoke the words, yielded to a possibility he had once sworn he never would consider. "Amanda, if you want to go, I will take you to a starship myself."

She looked up at him.

"I will," he promised. "Ask me, and I will."

She looked down at her hand in his, her long hair concealing her face. He could not see her expression, and she was shielding her thoughts from him.

And then he felt the drop of a tear on his hand covering hers. She reached out and rubbed at her eyes one handed, a childish gesture that made him love her all the more. He forced himself to find his voice. "I will call the spaceport." He started to let go of her hand.

"No."

He turned back, hardly daring to hope.

She shook her head, the gesture making her unbound hair fall forward in waves. "No."

"Amanda?" He realized she would not push it back and he did so, baring her face to his.

She looked up at him, tears on her cheeks. "I am an **awful** coward, my husband."

"You are not."

She nodded gravely. "There is one subject you have not mentioned, something we need to talk about. And you have not. And I don't want to hurt you, but I must speak of it. And I confess, I am a little afraid to do so."

Sarek froze, and looked down at her. "Spock."

She nodded, head down.

"You want to know if I am reconciled?"

"Yes."

Sarek drew a breath and told the truth. "I am not."

Her shoulders dropped. "Then nothing has really changed."

Sarek closed his eyes tightly a moment. "Amanda, is that your ultimatum?"

She looked up at him. "I am not holding anything over you, my husband. I swore that six months ago. It is you who has that power over me."

He sat down beside her, and took her hand. "My opposition to Starfleet is unchanged. My conviction that he belongs here is unchanged. My displeasure with him has not changed. What has changed is that I do not hold you responsible or in any way complicit with his decision."

Her eyes searched his. "Can you accept that I love you both, without feeling…challenged by it?"

Sarek sighed. "I do not know. I hope so. But I would prefer not to …test my newly regained control…by speaking of him. Or to him. At least for now. I prefer not to discuss him. Please do not ask this of me. It is…too soon."

She looked at him, eyes daring to hope. "Are you saying you might be reconciled in future?"

"I do not know."

She sighed softly. "It is not what I had hoped for. But that is a great change from never, my husband."

"I have learned the flaw and fallacy of never, my wife. At your instruction."

"It was not a lesson I planned to teach," she said softly.

"Amanda. Can you be reconciled to that in me? Would you choose to stay under those conditions?"

She looked at him with her eyes the color of earth's skies, and looked away again. He saw the muscles in her throat move as she swallowed and he steeled himself for the worst. "Amanda?"

"Do you know, my husband, there are people who think our marriage has been some sort of fairy tale?" Seeing his confusion, she added, "In my culture, that is something of a legend. An archetypal truth. Sometimes I used to think of our marriage that way myself. I suppose every wife does at some time, at least every human one. It is part of our culture, you see. I'm not held as much by my culture as you are by yours, but it is there in me. And in fairy tales, there are witches and ogres and terrible trials, and they vary from tale to tale. But regardless of those, the ending to the fairy tale is always the same: one must live happily ever after."

He stared at her mutely.

"Part of me wants that happy ending. Demands it, insists on it. To live happily ever after, that's how the story is supposed to end, and if it doesn't, you haven't lived or told a very good story, have you?

"If that happens you have only a few options. You can settle for what you have, you can keep reading and hope the ending can change, or you can look for a new story." She looked down at his hand over hers. "I know it isn't logical. Life isn't a fairy tale. But the ending we hope for is the same, regardless." She looked up at him. "And when you settle, the world is very harsh. How can you live with this or put up with that? It wants a happy ending too, and when you cheat it of one, it is judgmental.

"You have given me a choice, that no matter what I choose, I betray something, or someone. Even if it is myself. Maybe all the choices betray myself in some way. They are like mirrors, that reflect me, each one slightly off, and none of them are who I want to see. But all of them are me. And all of them are not. It makes it hard to choose any one."

"I would not **choose** to deny you anything," Sarek said.

"Do you think I don't know that, my husband? Do you think I don't know that if this were not tearing you up inside, that you would hesitate an instant? You who have given me so much?"

"The last six months I have taken nearly everything from you."

"Yes. In a desperate attempt to hold on. But before that, you spoiled me shamelessly."

His eyes were puzzled, anxious. "Spoil is to ruin. I know I have …hurt you-"

She laughed without mirth. "I meant spoiled in the sense of indulged. You have taught me to expect happy endings. So that I grew reluctant to accept any other." She grew pensive. "In a way that helped me these last six months. It perhaps kept me from making a more drastic choice."

"I don't understand."

"I don't want you to." She looked at him. "At one point in my life, I would have said, no, I will not accept this. That my life must be perfect, that you must be perfect, that my fairy tale must be complete with happy ending, and if not, like the indulged wife I had become, that I would leave you and make a life anew. I have threatened you with that choice more than once these last years."

"Twice," Sarek said, the word clipped.

"Now I am …not spoiled. I want my husband and son reconciled. I want to be able to speak freely of him to you, and you to him. I want not to live in fear of displeasing you, and being confined again. I don't want you to live in fear either. And I know I can have none of these things. And that I must choose to live with those restrictions, those fears, or I must leave for good and all. There is a Terran saying, Sarek.. The third time is the charm." She hesitated. "I won't …deny…that these last six months have been very hard for me. I've been afraid, of you, of my circumstances, of becoming so desperate that I …well, I have been afraid. And that I feel tempted, very tempted, to take the freedom you offer and run away. Even choosing at all frightens me." She looked up at him. "I haven't had the freedom of choice, and like any freedom now, it unsettles me. You see, I **am** a coward. But the only thing that frightens me more than making this choice is choosing to live without you. I never have blamed you for what has happened to us, it was my fault as much as yours. I love you. I have never stopped. And I have missed you, very much. I miss us. I would like our life back again. If we can find our way back to it."

"So you choose to stay."

She drew a breath, trembling visibly, and bit her lip. After a moment, she nodded. Then she looked up at him, swallowing hard and said. "Yes." Tears spilled on her cheeks and she said. "That was much harder than the first time, my husband."

He didn't pretend to misunderstand. "For me as well."

"At least this time, I think your mother will be pleased."

Sarek looked vexed, and then shook his head. "I could have throttled her a number of times these past months. But I know I owe her much."

"As do I. She's been very kind to me." She looked at him, "I never thought I would ever say that."

"If you knew then what you know now, would you still have said **yes** twenty years ago?"

She looked at him and then nodded again, still crying. "Yes."

He brought her hand to his lips and kissed it.

She looked up at him, bemused, even through her tears. "That's a pretty gesture. Where did you learn it?"

"I have my sources," he said, which made her raise an eyebrow of her own, wondering what that meant. He bent his head down, and kissed the tears from her cheeks and then kissed her. She returned it… cautiously, the first time she had done more than passively accept his attentions in months. At the back of his mind was the memory of a Sarek, who had spent years trying to train strict passivity in such things into his human wife. More fool, he. After the kiss was over she stayed in his arms, and he held her until she stopped trembling, the first of a series of tentative steps back to their former life.

Drawing back finally, he studied her a moment. She lay against him, quiet and as if she were perfectly content to stay there. And he felt, of all things right now, that was not a good reaction. "Amanda, there is something I would like to do today. An errand, of sorts. I think it will help us both."

Amanda drew a deep breath, trembling a little still, but feeling surprisingly calm, in spite of her suddenly changed circumstances, ones she still had trouble believing. Still, life went on. "Go ahead," she assured him. "I will be all right."

"I meant …us."

She looked up at him uncertainly, a question in her blue eyes.

"Us." Sarek repeated.

"You mean," she hesitated to even ask, "you want me to go… out?"

_to be continued…_

_copyright Pat Foley 2005_


	22. Chapter 22

**Holography 2**

**By**

**Pat Foley**

**Chapter 22**

Sarek flicked an eyebrow in surprise that she was still so tentative, but nodded.

"Outside? Out there?" She waved a hand in the general direction of the city beyond. He resisted the automatic compulsion to take her hand and correct her gesture and settled for a verbal one.

"More…that way…my wife. Is it a problem?"

She took her hand back from his and sat up, drawing her arms around her knees as if hugging herself. "You believe in throwing me into the deep end of the pool, don't you, my husband?"

Sarek was bemused that after all this time, she would not be, if not eager, at least willing to embrace her new freedom. "You did not plan to leave the house?"

"I haven't **planned** for anything."

"I meant…now."

"Well… eventually." She didn't look at him, as if embarrassed, and he watched fascinated as the color rose in her face. He had almost forgotten how human she was, so many months had he watched her live with a superimposed Vulcan calm. It made him want to explore those reactions even further. But they had time for that. They had plenty of time.

"I suppose I was thinking of a more gradual approach. You know. Step by step. Baby steps."

"I am not sure how much time you will have for such an …infantile… approach. The new teaching term at the Academy starts next week, my wife. You will have preparations to make there."

She buried her face in her knees, fingers tracing through her blond hair. He watched still bemused, while she wrestled with this new problem. "Oh, my. I had forgotten about that. It's much too soon for me to go back to teaching." She looked up. "Surely **I **can't be on the schedule?"

"I took the liberty of …making that decision for you, my wife." Sarek admitted, his heart sinking as he thought of her going another term without teaching, without going back to who and what she was. "I regret if it was presumptuous. But you are scheduled for your usual set of classes and research seminars. You have been missed there."

She shook her head, her face pale at the thought.

"Amanda?"

"I think I've changed my mind again."

He stared at her, dismayed, while she laid her head on her knees, wrestling in silent struggle. "My wife…I thought you would want this."

"I'm six months out of date… on everything. Things change so fast."

Sarek shrugged. "There have been circumstances – diplomatic assignments where you have accompanied me, where you have been…out of date… before. You'll catch up." He watched her, wondering how much of her hesitation was really due to academic concerns.

Finally, she looked up, sighing. "Are you sure I can't just stay home? Eat bon-bons? Live in the style I'd like to become accustomed to, but never have?"

For a moment, Sarek literally could not think, he was so confused. Then his lips twitched as he realized she was teasing him. After months of "yes, my husband" replies, he could be forgiven for slowness on the uptake. In reply, he took her hands and pulled her out of bed, to her feet, sending a hail of important documents to the floor. "If you did choose that course, my wife, you must consider that bon-bons would not be part of any diet I would supply. Candy is ruinous to the teeth."

"Chocolate is the food of love."

He drew her against him, his arms tight around her. "Yours seems to survive without it." He looked down at her, puzzled. "And I thought that was poetry?"

"Ah, well," Amanda gestured largely. "'Anything nourishes what is strong already.'"

"Pride and Prejudice. Elizabeth."

She looked up at him. "You never cease to amaze me. How **do** you know that, my husband?"

"In the past, I too have read your books when I could not sleep. They were usually lying somewhere nearby."

She hesitated, suddenly uncertain, eyes unfocused as a memory held her more captive than his arms, not a pleasant one, if her expression was any guide. He felt her shiver, then tremble, then tense as she fought to control herself.

Sarek sought to distract her. "Get dressed, my wife."

She shook herself out of it, and looked up at him. The tone was one he'd been using for months, the sort of command that brooked no disobedience. Six months of conditioning had taught her how he expected her to respond to that tone. And a part of her quailed a little within at her delay, but still she hesitated. Uncertain, but silently questioning. He looked at her, seemed to realize he had fallen into habit as well, and added. "Please."

She was almost dressed, in real clothes, finding the image in the mirror strange, when her hand reached out absently and closed on emptiness. She turned to Sarek. "You forgot something."

"My wife?"

She tugged at her long hair. "Do you want me to walk out of here like this?"

For a moment, he hesitated. "Truthfully, yes."

"Sarek!"

He frowned, in the first show of real reluctance she had seen. Crossing to her, he put his hands on her shoulders and it was a full thirty seconds before he stirred. "Obviously there are some things I had not expected would be so difficult for **me **to unlearn. Excuse me."

She sat there waiting, unsure, half wondering if he had changed his mind after all, thinking of door after door slamming closed. But then he brought back the box of hair ties from wherever he had taken them. He watched her reach for one, and said. "Let me."

She looked up at him, uncertainly in the mirror. With no show of pleasure, but as if he were relinquishing something under duress he pulled her hair back, braided it, and tied it, leaving it down and long. He stared at her in the mirror a moment longer and shook his head. "I do not like it."

"And I hate having my hair this long."

Sarek said nothing.

She sighed. "I suppose I could leave it loose at home."

"Is that a promise, my wife?"

She turned and eyed him, realizing he was serious. "And how is this helping me to adjust?"

"We agreed to help each other, did we not?"

Nodding slowly, she realized anew that Sarek's adjustment was perhaps as great as her own. "We did. Is it so important to you?"

For a moment, Sarek hesitated. "It is beautiful. In spite of the …difficulty of this time, for both of us, I have enjoyed seeing it always unbound. I will… regret...that has to end."

She considered this shy confession. Sarek rarely admitted to such things. "You wouldn't nag me if I push it behind my ears, would you?"

"I believe I have broken you of that bad habit, my wife."

Amanda grimaced. "That is not a word I'd prefer in this context. Can we say corrected?"

Sarek raised an eyebrow. "I stand corrected myself. Unbound **is** unbound." Sarek paused. "In both respects."

"So it is." Amanda said, realizing he was not referring merely to her hair. At least he wasn't taking umbrage at her being unbound enough herself to correct him, even as he requested she wear her hair in a fashion that supremely hampered everything she did. But it was a small thing. And she had gotten used to the annoyance. She shivered a little at the thought.

It is the little things that break you, she reminded herself. And her unbound hair had been a constant, tangible reminder of her chattel status, one that could never be ignored, so hampering was it, and being part of her, had never left her. Everything else in her confinement had been a removal from, one that with discipline she might tacitly overlook, or convince herself to ignore. This had been the opposite, like a scarlet letter. Always with her. In its direct contrast to the usual Vulcan customs, which required her hair always be bound in public, it became a constant reminder of her newly ignoble status. And Sarek's pointed corrections when she had repeatedly, reflexively pushed it back had been an even stronger reminder. He **had** broken her of that habit. And as they both knew that broken had been exactly the right word for what he had been doing. And why he had been doing it.

But I am not broken now. I refuse to be. Shaky, yes, but not broken. And it's just hair, a nuisance, a hindrance, but if he likes it long and loose what do I care? I am not Vulcan. My sense of self worth isn't tied to how I do my hair. I won't let it be.

And at the back of her mind was the memory of T'Pau, counseling her in her suite in the palace. Telling her she had also been a wife. She lived in this same house, in this same suite. If what Sarek told me of his clan's traditions is true, she submitted to the same Pon Far lessons I have. In the same bed. I never thought of that, realized what she was telling me. If she could do that, and still rule all of Vulcan with an iron will, I can do this and not be diminished by it.

And she warned me too. Is this Sarek setting a standard he needs, even as a request?

Sarek's adjustment might not be as great as hers in some respects – he had been out in the world all this time. But if she were him, with his biology, she'd have some very real fears about what setting her free would do to his hard-regained controls. If wearing my hair this way eases some of that, it is well worth it.

She steeled her own hard-regained ability to make yet another choice. "Very well, my husband. I will leave it loose at home as you request." She looked up to meet his eyes in the mirror, just a trace easier to make this demand there than directly. "**Most** of the time. But if I am doing something where it **is** really in the way, I get to pull it back. And I reserve the right to make an equal claim on you."

Just a shade of uneasiness in Sarek's eyes as he met hers. "And what claim is this?"

She shook her head. "I don't know, right now. I'll think of something eventually."

Sarek fingered the ends of her hair. "Very well. You have…a deal." He paused and his eyes met hers. "Shall we go, my wife?"

It felt unreal to walk out the gate. She'd stared at that gate so many times, a puzzle without a key, a barrier without a door, the ultimate symbol of her confinement. But now she walked right through it.

And turned around, startling Sarek, to watch it close with her on the other side. Watching her own leavetaking, as she'd watched others for months.

Magic. To see the gate close behind her, with her on the free side.

Frightening.

Was all of this a dream? Had any of it been real? Was this a dream now, and she would wake up in her own bed in the house beyond the locked gates, dreaming forbidden dreams of a freedom she would never have? She could see herself doing that. Dreaming of waking to the first day after six months had passed. but with Sarek this time saying nothing, determined to leave her a prisoner forever. And her dreaming in turn of this. That seemed more real a possibility than her present reality.

She shivered, and froze, caught up in alternate endings, suddenly not sure where she was, if she were awake or dreaming, free or imprisoned. Nothing seemed quite real.

"Amanda?" Sarek took her hand. "Amanda. Let's go."

She closed her fingers around his, leaned against him grateful for his solid strength, for the feel and sound and smell of him that grounded her in reality. And closed her eyes against her own leavetaking, letting Sarek's hand on hers guide her. It was too much, too soon. She could not watch this one.

She felt less strange in the aircar. The confinement of the space made it somehow easier to bear. But when Sarek landed in the shopping district of the Terran enclave, and she saw all the people – humans – around, her heart actually rose in her throat. She realized she hadn't seen a human, other than herself, in six months. She took a step closer to Sarek, feeling an odd panic, not sure if she wanted to run, and not sure where. Like a mouse out of cover, not sure whether to go forward or back. A part of her wanted to go home, a part of her chided herself for being a fool in a place where she had lived for twenty years and she had only been a prisoner six months, and a part of her wanted to run for the nearest star terminal and get the hell out of here. And away from the person next to her.

He looked down at her. "Amanda?"

She didn't move or look up to him. She seemed frozen in place.

He reached down and took her hand again, caring nothing for those around him. His gesture, acceptable in private, was considered excessive in polite Vulcan society, the Vulcan equivalent of the adolescent "necking" that he had observed on Earth. Something not done on a public street, of which proper etiquette disapproved, considering anything beyond the two fingered touch should be relegated to decent privacy. If his mother had seen him now, she would affirm it proved he was the spoiled adolescent she had always claimed him to be, but T'Pau was not likely to have ever set foot in this place, and few Vulcans either. And Amanda looked pale enough to faint.

"My wife?" He murmured.

Amanda shivered and straightened, stilling her trembling and trying to slip her fingers from his. "I'm all right."

Sarek started to speak and was interrupted by the cry of his wife's name, or a bastardized version of it, one he had never used and of which he soundly disapproved and disliked.

"Mandy! Mandy!"

A woman rushed over and Sarek stepped back, shocked and holding himself in check, as she threw her arms around his wife.

"Where have you been! I've been so worried about you! I haven't heard from you in ages and ages!"

"Reny," Amanda pulled back a little, looking flustered. "I thought you had a message that I was working -"

Renair pulled back, her dark eyes suspicious. "And what research project keeps you incommunicado for six months?"

"I was… busy."

"I thought you were dead! You walk out of the Academy to go to that old-" Renair glanced at Sarek with no friendly expression, but held back from the epithet she'd intended, "and you disappear, and your classes get posted for weeks, and then we hear you are working on a research project? Without colleagues or consults or peer reviews? Without references or any of your research that is **still** sitting at the Academy? Come on, Amanda I'm not stupid!"

"Renair I can't-"

"Talk about it. Just like no one would talk about you. Not where you'd gone or what happened to you." Another unfriendly look at Sarek. "I know that if you could have, you would have at least sent your friends some sort of personal message."

"I'm sorry you were worried. Look, I can't talk today, but -"

"I won't be here. I resigned at the end of the term and took a new job, back at Harvard. I leave on the shuttle tonight."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"I wouldn't stay here a day longer. Only my contract kept me here until the end of term. I don't know what happened to you, Amanda, but I saw, from the way everyone was not talking about it, that it was something bad. None of Vulcan authorities could be budged on trying to find out what happened to you. Didn't matter who you were, what your professional reputation was, who was asking for you. We got nowhere, and it was as if you were being left to rot."

Amanda drew back at this image, and said "But you see, Reny, that I'm fine."

"Are you?" She peered at Amanda with her deep black eyes, and drew back, shaking her head. "You don't look fine to me. More like you've just been let out of jail. All I know is, after what I've gone through trying to find out what happened to you and seeing how everyone washed their hands of you, I won't stay a day longer on this planet, or with these people. And if you're smart, Amanda, wherever you been locked up for the last six months, if you can get away now, you WILL."

"Reny, I-"

"Can't. I didn't think so." She gave Amanda one last hug, and stepped carefully around Sarek. "Think about it again, Amanda. And go **home**." She turned around and walked down the street.

Amanda reached out and Sarek took her hand again. She drew a deep breath, stilling her trembling. "I did not need that today."

"She was persistent in asking after you. I am afraid I was less than pleasant to her repeated queries."

Amanda could well imagine what 'less than pleasant' encompassed to a jealous husband in the grip of a violent syndrome. No wonder Renair had been concerned. "She was a friend. She had a right to worry about me. I can't say I'm sorry she did. There were times when I felt very forgotten by the world. It was an awful feeling. Like being buried alive."

Sarek did not reply. Even her voice was shaking. But at least she was talking of it. He knew very little of human psychology, but enough to know that she needed to be able to talk to him of it, that this was a good sign, no matter how it pained him to see how he had hurt her.

"It is nice to know that I wasn't forgotten. But I am sorry that she suffered for it. She was a good friend."

"Perhaps you can write her at Harvard."

"Perhaps." She shivered. "I hope there aren't any more reactions like that. I don't know how well I can take it."

"Do you wish to go home, my wife?" He drew a sharp breath, realizing the phrase suddenly had a new meaning.

She shook her head and let go of his hand. "I've come this far. Let's finish what we came for. I am curious to know your errand."

Sarek took her into the same shop, and purchased a frame similar to the one she had purchased, months ago.

She stared at it, as puzzled as he had been. "What's that for?"

He just shook his head. Back in the aircar, he drew a sheet of paper from a folder there, and showed her a list similar to the one she had drawn up, in his own handwriting, restoring all the freedoms she had originally curtailed, and the ones he had added. "If we are going to keep the one, my wife – and I would not part with it for anything – then we need to keep the other. As a reminder. And a promise."

Sarek slipped the sheet of paper inside the frame, and gave it to Amanda. She looked at it, tears swimming in her eyes, and then Sarek felt himself pushed back by the force of her arms around his neck. "I love you, my husband. You are…everything to me."

"No." Sarek denied. "Even though part of me might wish it, that is not true any more, my wife. You are no longer confined." Even as close as she was in his arms, Sarek felt the pull of the competing ties that would soon take her from him in so many ways. It would be difficult, for both of them. But it was what he wanted.

It was what he, they, both needed.

She was looking down, her arms still around him. He could feel her tremble in his arms.

"I will confess that still frightens me a little." She leaned her head on his shoulder. "Hard as that may be for you to understand. It's an awfully big world out there, and I feel a little strange in it. Can you stand being married to such a coward?"

"You are not a coward," Sarek denied. "I know of none braver." He looked at her, struggling so hard to come to terms with herself, and added, slowly, well aware of what he was saying, "I think I am not worthy to love **you**."

She pulled back from him, eyes wide at a declaration he had never made before. He nodded slowly, confirming it. "It has taken me many years my wife. I am a regrettably slow pupil in this regard. Or perhaps," he looked down at her archly, "perhaps it is that you are not as good a teacher as I had previously thought. It has taken you six months of devoted attention, private lessons as you might say, for you to-"

"Oh, you!" She pushed against him, laughing through her tears. "I don't believe you. I **must** be dreaming now. Say it again."

"I love you." He tipped her chin up, letting his fingers against her face reinforce the words through their bond. "I **do** love you."

She sighed and leaned against him. "I have always known you did, no matter how you denied it. But I confess, my husband, after twenty years, I had given up hope that you would ever say it. It's rather worth being locked up six months to finally hear it." She looked back at him, curious and suddenly grave. "When did you decide?"

"When I determined that I was willing to let you leave me. If that was what it took to ensure your happiness."

She thought about that a minute, as if not entirely pleased by this. "One foolish human emotion for another? Oh, Sarek. Is that what I've brought you to?"

"You did not bring me to it. I pursued you of my own volition. And have never regretted it. Indeed, my wife, you have had precious little choice or recourse in the matter, until now."

She didn't say anything, and Sarek frowned. "Does it displease you that am willing, finally and for the first time in twenty years, not to keep you with me even against your will?" He raised an eyebrow, "Once you agreed to bond, you know, you became mine. If anyone was brought to anything, it would have been you, kicking and screaming as the saying goes."

Amanda smiled, just a trace. "I was sometimes perhaps a little unenthusiastic about those lessons of yours. But I never kicked and screamed. Though I guess, from a Vulcan perspective, crying qualifies as that."

"My point being it would not have mattered to me then, if you did."

She was quiet, her experience for the past six months acknowledging some truth in that. "You have told me many times that there are reasons for your customs. For which we both have had a painful lesson. And I know I wasn't always acquiescent to them. I don't want my desires, foolish and illogical as they can be at times, to ever hurt you in the future. That's all. You must never let me do that. No matter what."

"They are neither foolish nor illogical, or they would not have the capacity to break my heart." He said the phrase lightly, but he saw tears start anew to her eyes even so.

"If you ever think I am going to break your heart, my husband, you have my permission to lock me up again. And throw away the key. You never need ask. I mean it. I have my moments of being tiresomely stubborn and resistant too, and I regret if my past behavior helped fuel our past situation. I intend to be more careful in future. Kicking and screaming won't come into it, but if it does, well, you have my prior permission to do what you must."

"I trust that the past six months has been sufficient for both of us. Amanda," he shook her, just a little, "It is **all right **now. No matter what it takes, or costs, or means for me, I am determined. I will not see you hurt again. Whether you like it or not, my wife," Sarek raised his eyebrow at the irony, "Kicking or screaming, I **will** love you."

"I am beginning to believe it, my husband," She looked up at him. "But can we go home now? I have had enough of freedom for one day. And having us arguing on opposite sides of our previous positions is making this more unreal. I need some time to consider it, and then I would like to hear you say all that again - including your surprising declaration - in more… private… circumstances."

Sarek raised an eyebrow. "Indeed. If this is going to be a constant desire of yours, such an inducement on my part might require your confinement again. Fortunately I have saved the most relevant security programs against that need."

"Beast," Amanda said, uncowed by what was clearly teasing, heavy handed as it might be. They were both out of practice at this. But to prove she was up to it in kind, she would tease as well in turn. "But, my husband, you have forgotten that you promised me something."

"Indeed." Sarek drew back, looking at her. "And what might that be?"

Amanda reached back and drew the clip from her hair, letting it spill down her shoulders. "Fair trade." She fixed him with a challenging gaze, totally unconscious that she had not done anything near like this in six months. "We did have an agreement. Surely such an annoyance on my part is well worth," she tilted her head carelessly, "…a few words."

One eyebrow winged upward in appreciation. Not just for the logic of her choice, but in admiration of her boldness. Based on the strength of that gaze, he thought it would not take her very long to adjust. "Very true. Perhaps when we get home, we might consider playing chess, my wife. That was an inspired move."

"Chess is not what I want to play at with you. Is it so with you, my husband?"

Sarek glanced at her, and started the ignition of the aircar. "Chess… can wait."

Amanda sighed and sat back, taking his hand in hers. "We have time for both. We have lots of time."

**Holography, Volume 2**

**The Wedding Present, or The Starling's Lament**

**March – April 2005**

**at Brookwood**

_Copyright Pat Foley 2005_

**References**

But Not For Me - the song Amanda plays at the piano - is of course by George and Ira Gershwin. A particularly pretty piano arrangement that inspired me to include it here is in the score for the movie Haunted ( Anthony Andrews and Kate Beckinsdale)

Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights

William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

And, for those literary buffs interested in Amanda's quote from Sterne, regarding the starling and the Bastille, here is the source and context of it, being more obscure then the other references above. The nature of liberty was of course, an important question of that time:

_Laurence Sterne, A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy - 1768_

_Eugenius, knowing that I was as little subject to be overburden'd with money as thought, had drawn me aside to interrogate me how much I had taken care for; upon telling him the exact sum, Eugenius shook his head, and said it would not do; so pull'd out his purse in order to empty it into mine.—I've enough in conscience, Eugenius, said I.—Indeed, Yorick, you have not, replied Eugenius.—I know France and Italy better than you.—But you don't consider, Eugenius, said I, refusing his offer, that before I have been three days in Paris, I shall take care to say or do something or other for which I shall get clapp'd up into the Bastille, and that I shall live there a couple of months entirely at the king of France's expense.—I beg pardon, said Eugenius, dryly: really I had forgot that resource._

_4_

_Now the event I treated gaily came seriously to my door._

_5_

_Is it folly, or nonchalance, or philosophy, or pertinacity—or what is it in me, that, after all, when La Fleur had gone down-stairs, and I was quite alone, I could not bring down my mind to think of it otherwise than I had then spoken of it to Eugenius?_

_6_

_—And as for the Bastille; the terror is in the word.—Make the most of it you can, said I to myself, the Bastille is but another word for a tower—and a tower is but another word for a house you can't get out of.—Mercy on the gouty! for they are in it twice a year—but with nine livres a day, and pen and ink and paper and patience, albeit a man can't get out, he may do very well within—at least for a month or six weeks; at the end of which, if he is a harmless fellow, his innocence appears, and he comes out a better and wiser man than he went in._

_7_

_I had some occasion (I forget what) to step into the courtyard, as I settled this account; and remember I walk'd downstairs in no small triumph with the conceit of my reasoning.—Beshrew the somber pencil! said I vauntingly—for I envy not its powers, which paints the evils of life with so hard and deadly a coloring. The mind sits terrified at the objects she has magnified herself, and blackened: reduce them to their proper size and hue, she overlooks them—'T is true said I, correcting the proposition—the Bastille is not an evil to be despised—but strip it of its towers—fill up the fossé—unbarricade the doors—call it simply a confinement, and suppose 't is some tyrant of a distemper—and not of a man, which holds you in it—the evil vanishes, and you bear the other half without complaint._

_8_

_I was interrupted in the heyday of this soliloquy, with a voice which I took to be of a child, which complained "it could not get out."—I look'd up and down the passage, and seeing neither man, woman, or child, I went out without further attention._

_9_

_In my return back through the passage, I heard the same words repeated twice over; and looking up, I saw it was a starling hung in a little cage.—"I can't get out—I can't get out," said the starling._

_10_

_I stood looking at the bird: and to every person who came through the passage it ran fluttering to the side towards which they approach'd it, with the same lamentation of its captivity.—"I can't get out," said the starling.—God help thee! said I, but I'll let thee out, cost what it will; so I turn'd about the cage to get to the door; it was twisted and double twisted so fast with wire, there was no getting it open without pulling the cage to pieces.—I took both hands to it._

_11_

_The bird flew to the place where I was attempting his deliverance, and thrusting his head through the trellis, press'd his breast against it, as if impatient.—I fear, poor creature! said I, I cannot set thee at liberty.—"No," said the starling—"I can't get out—I can't get out," said the starling._

_12_

_I vow I never had my affections more tenderly awakened; or do I remember an incident in my life, where the dissipated spirits, to which my reason had been a bubble, were so suddenly call'd home. Mechanical as the notes were, yet so true in tune to nature were they chanted, that in one moment they overthrew all my systematic reasonings upon the Bastille; and I heavily walk'd up-stairs, unsaying every word I had said in going down them._

_13_


End file.
